In France they call him ‘Mr Feel Good’, because it helps people fight anxiety and get better. With a recipe full of practical advice based on scientific research. David Gurion he has been studying these topics for years: he is a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Paris and for years he was in charge of the Sainte-Anne Clinic, where he studied bipolar and depressive disorders. In his latest book Antistress, fight anxiety, depression and compulsive hunger in seven simple steps (ed. Sperling & Kupfer) presents a series of exercises. He is convinced that many discomforts related to the emotional sphere, if they do not constitute a serious disturbance, can be countered by training the mind to regulate stress, with a series of simple moves.
Professor Gourion, there are already many methods to combat anxiety, such as mindfulness and yoga, and many self-help books. What do you propose new?
“I often prescribe yoga or mindfulness sessions to my patients to get better, but these methods don’t work for everyone. For example, I fight my anxiety with sports, but I can’t do it with meditation. It takes something that works. for everyone and that starts from cognitive therapies. Texts on these therapies are present in the scientific literature, but something popular and simple was needed. In the days of the lockdown we could not treat patients who needed help. There was too much demand and few doctors available and it is still like this today. For this reason, in the days of isolation, I started writing this little manual. Sometimes a little advice can change things, this of course if we are not in the presence of a real depression or a serious disorder “.
How to deal with all this stress, increasingly present in our lives?
“I propose 7 sessions that face each other by reading a different chapter of the book once a week. We are all tired and we must not get too excited. The first point is: ‘We are not our waiters’. I will give you an example: if at 24 o’clock evening calls an intern from our office and tells us that the coffee machine must be fixed, a non-priority problem, we reply that we will talk about it the next day. We must do the same with our worries. I must be able to not think about it immediately and to deal with them later. I have to clear my mind of what is superfluous. “
Do these tips really work?
“They are simple solutions that help those who are tired and stressed. In the last 20 years I have used a lot of these motivational therapies to fight addictions, such as alcohol. It is not easy for the patient to accept change, but when he does it can be very long. better. Slowly, with indications of this type, it is possible to deactivate the mechanisms that generate stress and train the mind to regulate it “.
A great source of stress today is related to technology. Business messages that also invade your free time.
“We spend the weekend answering work sms that arrive on Whatsup. Technology is invasive and we have to defend ourselves by applying good habits. In the hours of rest we have to switch off and not check the communications of the office. They are rules of hygiene for a healthy lifestyle “.
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Sometimes very anxious people foresee the worst and are unnecessarily alarmed. How to defuse this mechanism?
“The brain has a hard time distinguishing facts from hypotheses. We all have the same fears. Before a medical check-up we ask ourselves:” What if I were sick? What if I had a tumor? “, But in the anxious there is a lack of cognitive flexibility. The person gets stuck on negative thoughts, while those who do not suffer from anxiety can think of other things and thus avoid excessive pessimism”.
How to get out of this situation?
“I propose very simple exercises. I ask people to make noise with both hands and to shift their attention first to the noise coming from the right and then from the left. Then I ask them to concentrate once again on the sound coming from both hands and then on that of the surrounding environment, usually the room we are in. This technique helps to make it clear that we can shift our attention to something else. Get away from negative thoughts. It is important to motivate people to change “.
Are these exercises useful for prevention?
“The method works when you are stressed, but there is not yet a severe form of anxiety or depression. It is a form of prevention and must be accompanied by correct lifestyles: the right diet, an adequate number of hours of sleep and the absence of alcohol and drugs. With simple advice it is possible to prevent the most frequent psychological consequences of chronic stress: bouts of depression, anxiety, mania and compulsive hunger “.
You write that stress is like salt, it doesn’t need much. How to understand that we are too stressed?
“If we did not know stress we would not even know peace and serenity. It is an engine for action and increases cognitive faculties, leads to maximum intellectual performance. But if the stress increases too much, it blocks. It is in that moment that it is bad for our health and damages the immune system. It can change our life. That is why it must be monitored and regulated “.
What to say to a student who risks not taking exams because he is too anxious?
“I tell him to distinguish the serious things from those that are not. Dying is terrible, not other things. Then I ask him to imagine what happens if he does not pass the exam. He replies that he is afraid of losing a year, then another, of not to graduate, to live like a bum, rejected by his family due to bankruptcy. At that point I ask other questions: “Are you sure that something like this could happen?”. After thinking about it, the boy realizes that it is something unlikely. He exaggerated. It is bad to be rejected but it is not irreparable damage. I ask questions to make it clear that these hypotheses are not very concrete. Many questions, because the anxious do not need answers but questions to realize that the scenario that they imagine it is unlikely. If we give an anxious person answers, he clings to us and creates an addiction. He does not become autonomous and cannot fight his discomfort. Better make him think. Slowly, slowly, with reasoning, the anxious one finds a way for them drink from the anxiety of him “.
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