Practical Peace: Real Tools for Stress and Anxiety

Dr. David Fraze: We're going to continue our series today on mental wellness.
Yesterday we talked about online wellness and we said push through the uncomfort that
when you put that phone down and you actually have conversations and also try to get that
dopamine under control by giving the first hour of the day a no phone zone, last hour
of the day in no phone zone and then especially meals the no phone zone now right now faces are
glowing so I know that you're not here some of you even though we talked about yesterday that
we cannot necessarily process five things at once like we think today is going to be totally
practical on this thing called stress and anxiety every single semester since stress and anxiety and
suicide aging goes up. I have some students that are like going on my word. I can't handle it. I
have, I think I have an anxiety disorder and I ask them, I'm like, okay, have you ever failed
anything before? And they're like, no. Okay. How did you study for this test? I didn't.
How late did you stay up last night? I haven't been asleep. I've been playing games. I'm like,
okay, so here's the problem. Let's get some sleep. Did you eat today? Oh no. Okay. Yes. A pop tart.
I mean, what have you done that helps with the stress and anxiety?
So today we're going to get very, very, very practical in how timely it is at this part of the semester.
So I'm going to welcome to the stage, and you help me welcome Stephen Jennings and Regan Sarton.
That is half-hearted. Here we go. Thank you.
Thank you.
She yelled at you, Reagan.
This one right down here.
She likes you.
All right, we've been talking about stress and anxiety,
and y'all have some very practical things that we can do to help control stress and anxiety.
And I want to give as much time to you as possible because I hear this is going to be like show and tell.
We're actually going to get to demonstrate some of these things.
So, Reagan, can I start with you?
Dr. Regan Sarten: Sure, why not?
Dr. David Fraze: Isn't she awesome?
By the way, Reagan loves this stuff personally because I think Dr. Jennings and I have stressed you out a little bit.
Is that true?
Dr. Regan Sarten: Yes.
I told him, if you're stressed, don't talk to me because I will stress you out more.
Dr. David Fraze: That's a credibility buster.
But we believe you.
It's awesome.
So this is going to be self-talk time then.
Give us your number.
And this is great because you have stress and anxiety and people like us kind of make you nervous.
Those are your notes, so you're even more nervous.
Give us your best stress and anxiety reducer trick.
You got to hold your microphone like this.
I'm going to make you really nervous.
There you go.
Dr. Regan Sarten: Well, I think when I heard you do the intro, this is not answering your question,
but I thought of you talked about making mistakes,
and the first thing I thought of is how if we don't make mistakes, we don't learn.
We learn from our mistakes.
And so we have to realize that we're all human, we all make mistakes, and that's how we learn.
Dr. David Fraze: That's awesome.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: So don't stress about mistakes.
Dr. Regan Sarten: True.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes.
Dr. David Fraze: So are you not perfect, Reagan?
Because that's why you're on this stage.
Dr. Regan Sarten: No.
Dr. David Fraze: Dr. Jennings, you're not perfect?
No.
Dr. McDowell, are you not perfect?
Wow.
Only Dr. G is that perfect.
None of us are.
So get used to failure.
That's an awesome thing.
Okay?
Dr. Stephen Jennings: So I would say one of the first things I really discovered about lowering stress and anxiety was, I mean, in high school.
Our track coach taught us how to catch our second wind, how to deep breathe.
And one time I was running a 10K, and I was in the military, and I'm a medic.
So when I got to the end of the 10K, I see my buddies over there in the ambulance, and I go over and I grab a stethoscope,
And I practice deep breathing, and I can actually see my heart rate dropping.
So a little exercise I'd like you guys to think about.
At the end of a stressful day, you find yourself maybe at Walmart or, you know, the pharmacy or something.
Go over to the pharmacy section, and they've got the little machine where you sit in and take your blood pressure, right?
So you take your blood pressure.
For me, if it's been a stressful day, maybe 125 over 82, you know.
And so I deep breathe, and I take about a minute.
I relax.
I think about maybe walking on the beach with my wife or something,
and I can actually lower my blood pressure by about four points.
And then I'll do it again and lower it four more points,
and I can actually get down to like 119 over 76, 77, which is really good.
So I'm saying it's very empowering to know that you can stop
and lower your blood pressure and your anxiety.
So try that next time you're at Walmart.
Dr. David Fraze: So you're, was that a training thing?
10K, let's go take care of some sick people
or were those people dying from the 10K?
I mean.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: I don't think they were prepared
or else they're not eating right or something.
Too much cholesterol.
Dr. David Fraze: Wow.
Okay.
So can we, can we try this real quick?
Are you, do you believe in the breathing?
All right.
What are some, what are some key elements?
I know this is one.
Lead us in just breathing real quick.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: So I think the key element, yeah.
So, you know, you want to sit down and relax and, you know, be grounded, you know, and we'll talk more about that.
But, you know, your feet on the ground.
And the key is really what you don't want to do is hyperventilate.
You know, when you're breathing like a dog, your anxiety is going to go through the roof.
But if you close your mouth, slow, deep breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, and you do that several times, literally your blood pressure will lower.
I watched Houdini one time.
Before he gets in the thing, you know, and he's going to be four minutes underwater, he oxygenates his blood by deep breathing.
Dr. David Fraze: That's stressful.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: That would be stressful, no doubt.
Dr. David Fraze: Thank you.
Okay, so breathing, and we'll do more of that here in a second.
Do you want to play tag?
What else do you have?
Dr. Regan Sarten: So another thing that I've thought of,
you've heard about, like, cold plunges and things like that,
and there's lots of benefits from that.
I don't know all of them, but sometimes if you just,
this would be something you could only really do at home
because you can't do this out in public,
but if you, like, splash cold water in your face,
I guess you could maybe in the bathroom if you were out.
Dr. David Fraze: We have a fountain right out there.
Dr. Regan Sarten: still cold okay and that um temperature change slows your heart rate so that was one thing that
i found right cooler yes yes cooler which most of the times in public bathrooms and water fountains
Dr. David Fraze: it's going to be so i i'm a performance coach and the breathing and the the water i had a student
who um fourth school and he would start to do weird things like i had to hold his shoulder pads
out so he could breathe. He had no awareness of how to do the breathing and stuff. So I read
a cold plunge would work. I couldn't put his head in a bucket of water, which I really wanted to do,
but I took his gloves off and he submerged his hands in the water as far as they would go.
It reset the synapses and he breathed deep. Never had a problem again for the rest of the season
because he learned a new dance.
So a physical sensation, breathing,
those are awesome things.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: All right.
So I'll tell you the number one hack,
and probably your mom taught it to you
when you started junior high and had multiple classes,
the calendar.
How many of you use a calendar, right?
The beginning of the semester,
you sit down and you go through every syllabus,
every day you've got a class, all tests,
and you put it in your calendar.
I do a lot of marriage counseling.
I'm a counselor by trade.
And the first thing I do is I get couples to download a calendar app.
If it ain't on the calendar, it ain't happening.
So one thing that really de-stresses me and my wife, we take about four mini vacations a year.
And she books them all in September for, like, Thanksgiving.
You get snow and towels typically by then.
Santa Fe, you know, for December.
And then maybe Colorado somewhere.
in spring break. And so we do four of those. And because think about it, if I ask you,
hey, you want to go skiing this weekend? You'd be like, oh, dude, I got too much going on.
But if I said, hey, in four months, would you and your wife like to go skiing with us?
You'd say, what? Let me check. And you'd look at your calendar, right? If you put it on the
calendar, it'll happen. So appointments, when papers are due, I hate it when students say,
I'll remember, I'll remember until you get stressed out.
Dr. David Fraze: So calendar.
This is crazy because I looked, very few people's hands go up.
And have you all heard this as professors?
You didn't remind me this was due.
Yeah.
You know, and it goes back to the idea of failure.
You've received reminders over and over again.
This is one of those things.
Can I just speak on behalf of the professors, have some therapy?
You receive a syllabus.
you receive a class schedule, and I know some professors, they don't always keep to that,
but if you have a class schedule and you put things down, it is actually a life hack. You're
at a point in your career, in your education, where you have to take control of it and say,
okay, I have a paper due here. The professor's not going to remind 80 people that my paper is
due at this time. You have a responsibility to that. A calendar is an incredible hack,
and we have them on our phones now. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that crazy? With alarms, Stephen.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: That's right. That's right.
Dr. David Fraze: Alarm.
And I use the alarm too.
That's good.
So we talk about getting comfortable with failure, our breathing, the sensation of cold, calendar.
What else?
Dr. Regan Sarten: So I worked with a girl one time, and she said about the calendar and planners and things like that,
it's a lot of pressure on yourself to have to remember all of these things.
We have all of these pressures and enough pressures already.
So if you just take a second, write it down, then the pressure is off of you because you know where to find it.
And so you don't have to keep all of that in your brain and remember it.
Dr. David Fraze: And so yesterday when we talked about the idea of the dopamine hits, it is a lot easier to just go to doom scrolling and then you forget about what you're going to do.
But the dopamine hit can happen as well when you check off an item on your calendar and go, I just did that.
So that can hit you with dopamine too.
This one leads to a better grade.
This one, your brain's rotting.
So, I mean, this one's better, but both take effort.
Both take effort.
That's good.
What else?
Dr. Stephen Jennings: So, grounding.
Let's talk about grounding a little bit.
And I'll let Reagan talk a little bit about the 3-3-3 method.
But, you know, grounding is, I think we spend way too much time looking at our phones, you know,
looking at, you know, scrolling and just like my son, he's always listening to alternative news,
you know, like, Dad, did you know Michelle Obama is actually an alien? I'm like, son,
you need to get out more. But like, so we spend way too much time looking at this stuff on the
screen. And so in grounding, you're getting away from that. And you're, you know, you're trying to
find things that you can see, feel, touch.
I'll let
you do that.
Tell me about the 3-3-3 method for grounding.
Dr. Regan Sarten: Well, he was going to talk about the 5-4-3-2-1,
but a simpler method of that.
Dr. David Fraze: Too many, so you got a 3-3, 3?
Dr. Regan Sarten: Yes, a lot
of numbers.
3-3-2-1.
Dr. David Fraze: I can remember this.
Okay, 3-3‑3.
Dr. Regan Sarten: So, the 3-3‑3, you have to, when, well, what
you're doing, it's like an easier way to
do a simpler version of the 5-4-3-2‑1, so
you name three things that you see, three sounds that you hear in three parts of your body. So,
like your fingers, toes, shoulders, and you don't have to do it out loud. You can, so if you're in
public, you can just think through it. So, I'm sitting in the cafeteria and go, hands. I mean,
Dr. David Fraze: that's not a good thing to do. Toes, feet. Okay, feet. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, when you're doing
Dr. Stephen Jennings: that, the five, four, three, two, one, five is like five things you can see, right? Now, if you're
looking at a screen and you're totally getting into what this thing's talking about, you've
almost, you know, you're detached. And so I think it's great to stand up, go look out your window,
you know, see some trees, the blue sky, you see a dog running down the street, you see your car,
you know, the next thing is things you can touch. You can walk outside, you can touch the grass,
you can feel the dew on the grass, you can, you can, you know, feel the tree, things you hear,
you know, you can hear the birds chirping, the dog barking, you know, things you can smell,
you can smell your coffee, you can smell the fresh cut grass, and these things just ground
you in reality, and you know, things you can taste, you can taste your coffee, or your
Dr. Pepper, whatever it is you like to drink, you know, but I'll tell you, I had a real experience
about this, I got to where I was just a workaholic in my office all the time, anxious, hated talking
to lawyers, you know, if I was, you know, dealing with custody battles or something, and my friend
invited me one day, said, hey, let's go golfing this Friday in Hereford, right, and so we get out
there about one o'clock, nobody's out there, the grass is beautiful and green, I can hear the birds
chirping, I can hear, you know, just the wind blowing, and it's so surreal, I actually forgot
what it was like to be out in nature, and it just grounded me about how unimportant some of those
anxiety producing things were and he gave me a way bigger perspective and and this guy too uh
talking about things you like to listen to he's a worship leader so me and him would he would invite
me sometimes to help lead worship and so uh things you can hear and just i mean that helps you ground
Dr. David Fraze: and and not spend so much time looking at that computer stuff so the three so in case people
are writing it down or you can turn your video on uh without the light so three things
Dr. Regan Sarten: three things you see three things you see three sounds you hear three sounds and then move three
parts of your body i think i said that wrong the first time but move three parts of your body okay
Dr. David Fraze: and yours is five things you can see four things you can touch three things you can smell three
Dr. Stephen Jennings: things you can um yeah smell smell two taste taste and one um i think we skipped one in there
Let me see.
Five things you can see.
Four things you can touch.
Three things you can hear.
Two things you can smell.
And one you can taste.
Dr. David Fraze: That's awesome.
That is good.
Dr. Regan Sarten: And can I say one thing about that?
Dr. David Fraze: Say it, Reagan.
Look at you.
So proud of you.
No longer anxious.
You talk too much.
Dr. Regan Sarten: No, I'm always anxious, but I just work through it, you know?
Awesome.
So I think the reason these things work so well is when you are nervous or stressed or anxious about something, that's what your mind is focusing on.
And these kind of take your mind.
It gives you something else to think about and grounds you, yes.
But it gets you out of that cycle of just worrying about that thing that you're stressed or anxious about.
Dr. David Fraze: So when we look at, and this is great, okay, so the idea of accepting failure is an opportunity to learn.
The idea of breathing, the idea of cold sensation, which resets that parasympathetic nervous system and the breathing.
Then you have the three and three and the five, three, three, three, five, four, three, two, one.
One of the things that's interesting about the way God made our bodies is we have an electrical system in our brain and in our heart.
So you can be brain dead or your brain could be functioning.
And that question of if somebody cut your head off with a guillotine, how long do you live?
That's where that question comes from.
Don't Google that.
And so you have those two things going on.
But it's that reptilian brain in the back of fight, flight, or freeze.
And you've given us ways to control that because if we see a threat,
we can either automatically go to reaction.
But what y'all are doing in helping us with these grounding is that we're moving up into our brain and saying,
okay, is a test really something to lose your control over?
Is, you know, is a paper going to destroy my life?
Do I need to quit school, change majors?
Do I need to know math to get to heaven?
So, see, there's a debate.
But I can put things in proper perspective without just reacting.
You're saying that's possible.
Dr. Stephen Jennings: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Dr. David Fraze: It is.
Definitely possible.
Great life facts.
Anything else?
We've got like just a few minutes before we give an assignment to this audience.
What would you just, if we were in your office and we were just stressed out,
I know you would use a 5-4-3-2-1 or 3-3-3 in two seconds.
Breathe.
I do think you should get some water and just plunge their face in it.
That would be cool.
But what would you tell, what would be your final word to this group of people
and those listening online that are like, I wish I was there?
give us a word to help us this day about our stress and anxiety so i i would say definitely
Dr. Stephen Jennings: i i like to get up early in a quiet time and read my bible you know it gives me a real perspective
on life i read a little bit about from solomon you know about vanity like you can do all kinds
of stuff and be stressed out about it but really being grounded in the word and loving the lord is
the key to life and i think if you keep that perspective it's great and then a second little
tell you. When I get stressed out, I open up my phone, and I know I was telling you don't look at
your computer too much, but I'll go to YouTube, and then I'll look up pranks, and I'll look up
pranks guys pull on their wives, you know, and I'll just tell you this funny one. This guy has an
Dr. David Fraze: electric dog fence. I really like you. This is fun. Electric dog fence. He's got an electric dog fence around
Dr. Stephen Jennings: his yard, and he takes the little collar the dog's supposed to wear, and he turns it on, and he sets
it on the patio table, and as he's walking past, he tells his wife, oh, grab that real quick. We're
So she grabs it, and when she hits the fence, she's like, ah!
You know, it shocks her.
And so they put it in slow motion.
She's like, ooh!
It's so funny.
Dr. David Fraze: Have you ever done that to your wife in front of all these people?
Dr. Stephen Jennings: No, okay.
Because she probably really would shock me if I did that.
But that relieves my stress.
Once I'm laughing, I'm good, you know.
And laughter, okay.
Yeah.
Dr. David Fraze: This is a refrigerator magnet, but it really is good medicine to laugh.
I bet y'all laugh a lot in y'all's department, not at Carlos, but just everything.
With Carlos, yeah.
It's good stuff.
Yes, ma'am.
Dr. Regan Sarten: Well, I think it's important to allow yourself some grace and realize that, I don't know,
sometimes students get nervous about making a B or something like that, just remembering
if it's that scenario.
A B is still a good grade.
We're going to make mistakes.
And also, I thought we learn from mistakes.
And so, you know, if we get a B or something like that, we know what to do better the next time.
And so I think just allowing yourself grace is important.
Dr. David Fraze: On behalf of the D students, does it work the same way with a B?
Dr. Regan Sarten: Yes.
Dr. David Fraze: B's are degrees.
Yeah, D's are degrees.
You can live with it.
You can live with it.
All right, everybody put your feet on the ground.
We're going to practice a couple of deep breaths.
If you have a watch, this would be fun.
If you have a heartbeat, heart rate, turn that on.
If you have a heartbeat.
If you don't, please raise your hand.
The person next to you has no heartbeat.
Ground yourself literally like this.
And how we're going to do it, as Dr. Jennings said, you're going to breathe through your nose as deep as you can.
Try not to raise your shoulders.
And then like you have a straw.
And you're going to breathe out very, very slow.
So if I can hear you, you're doing it wrong.
So just...
Now, y'all, just for fun, notice your heart rate.
If you have it.
Let's do it again.
and got amazing I feel calm the way he's made us it's one of the biggest hacks that both of them
talk to it's in the 5 4 3 2 1 3 3 3 that breath always hits the parasympathetic and resets
reset so you can think clearly.
If you watch basketball games,
what does a free throw player do
before throwing a free throw?
You watch a batter before he bats.
What does he do?
You watch a gymnast before they do their deal.
You watch somebody who comes on stage to perform
because it resets and it focuses your attention.
Thank you all.
Can we give them a round of applause?
This is so good.
And didn't Reagan do well?
My word.
She did great.
You did great, Reagan.
She wanted to sit over there, but we thought you needed some of our...
Dr. Regan Sarten: They made me sit in the middle.
Dr. David Fraze: And you did great.
Here's what I want you to do.
In just a moment, Reagan, you get to dismiss people.
It's going to be awesome.
This is your job today.
Everybody's wanting to do this.
If you have time, okay, go practice a little personal wellness.
Walk out here, see something.
If you want to laugh with a friend, fine, but let's put both these days together.
Put your phone down and walk out here and actually look at somebody's face and go,
how are you doing today?
And it's going to be awkward.
Push through that, and let's see how grounded we can get this afternoon.
Okay, so would you like to dismiss us?
Go ahead.
Dr. Regan Sarten: You're dismissed.
Dr. David Fraze: There we go.
Great job.
Have a great day.