3 Neuroscience Skills to Transform High-Functioning Anxiety Into Leadership Strength

“Imagine turning that constant hum of high-functioning anxiety into a finely tuned alert system. It sounds like magic, but it’s actually neuroscience. And it works. It’s basically what I talk about all day long with clients.” ~Dr. Lisa Hartwell

Aloha and welcome,

Have you ever wondered if your high-functioning anxiety could be turned into your leadership superpower?

In this episode of Anxiety Ease, we’ll look at how 3 neuroscience-backed skills can transform your high functioning anxiety from a crippling force into a leadership strength. 

Imagine anxiety as your greatest ally because it is! If you’re struggling with high-functioning anxiety, this episode is for you. 

Mahalo for listening,
Dr. Lisa Hartwell

Transcript

3 Neuroscience Skills to Transform High-Functioning Anxiety Into Leadership Strength

Imagine turning that constant hum of high-functioning anxiety into a finely tuned alert system. It sounds like magic, but it's actually neuroscience and it works. It's basically what I talk about all day long with clients. Aloha, and welcome. You're listening to the Anxiety ease podcast. And I'm your host, Dr. Lisa Hartwell. I'm a Hawaii licensed clinical psychologist, anxiety coach, and retreat facilitator. 

I'm going to be sharing mine and other human stories, lessons for my fellow brain nerds who love science like I do in our own life's journey to live life with more ease. Aloha. Hello, my high functioning, highly ambitious professionals. I know what it's like. You are probably not sleeping and your brain is on overdrive the minute your head hits the pillow at night. I get it, and I also know how to fix it. I got three steps for you. There's three steps that I use with every single client to get you back to sleep.

So we can address that high functioning anxiety at a later time. We got to get you sleeping first. So jump into the show notes, grab the link, get your three step mini guide that includes a very, very easy step by step process to walk you through how to get back to sleep. A nice little quiet meditation to help you go to sleep. And then I have a easy, easy process of doing some bullet journaling to help you understand why you're probably not sleeping. Go ahead and grab that in the show notes with the link. It'll cost you less than a cup of coffee or whatever you drink to keep you awake during the day. Hey, maybe we'll just switch that out for some lemon water. How does that sound? All right, you take care and happy sleeping. 

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Anxiety Ease podcast. I'm Dr. Lisa Hartwell, and today we're diving into something obviously transformative. But I am biased. We're going to explore how you can turn your high functioning anxiety into a superpower for leadership. Sounds intriguing, right? Well, grab your favorite beverage, let's get comfy and get started. So, first off, I want to acknowledge something.

If you're feeling anxious, especially as a high achieving professional or business owner like myself, you're not alone. Trust me, I have been there. Anxiety sometimes can feel like a storm cloud hanging over your head. But what if I told you that cloud always has a silver lining? Always. And not just any silver lining, but one that can actually make you a stronger, more resilient leader. Because frankly, that's what we kind of all strive for, right? So I kind of want to break it down for you. Today we're talking about brain and science based power skills, and I want you to think of these skills as your personal toolkit, crafted by understanding how your brain actually works.

Imagine turning that constant hum of high functioning anxiety into a finely tuned alert system. It sounds like magic, but it's actually neuroscience and it works. It's basically what I talk about all day long with clients and what I use on myself as well. But I want you to do. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to picture this. Basically, our brains are like a high tech computer. Sometimes it gets overloaded with too many tabs.

Open emails, meetings, deadlines, keeping a business afloat, taking care of the kids or the family or your own self. You know, it's no wonder it starts to lag. We all know what happens with our computer when we have too many things going on, right? High functioning anxiety is kind of like that annoying pop up notification that keeps telling you something needs attention. But here's the kicker. This pop up really can be your greatest ally. One of your first power skills that I want to kind of go over and talk about and just remind everyone is about mindfulness. And I know it sounds a bit cliche, but hear me out. Mindfulness is basically like hitting the refresh button on your brain's browser.

It helps you close those extra tabs and focus on what's truly important. When you're mindful, you're actually present. And when you're present, you're powerful. It's truly the antidote, actually, for high functioning anxiety. And one of my secrets that I do when I have, I look up and I see I have too many tabs open, first of all, I'll go run through them and see if I still am addressing anything that needs to that's still open. But the other thing I do, and it kind of helps my brain just kind of let things go, is sometimes I'll just go up into the search bar when I'm clicking on a tab, make a copy of whatever that site is or whatever I'm working on, and I open up an email, a new email, and I copy and I paste it into an email, and I go through every single tab that's open, and I decide in that moment if it's something I want to come back to. So sometimes I might have ten tabs in that email, ten tab links in that email, and then I just email myself. So, number one, I know what tabs were open.

I can revisit it. And number two, I can kind of let it go because I don't feel like I've lost it. Sometimes I have this weird anxiety that pops up that if I close that tab, I'm not going to remember what I was working on. So I'll go back and revisit it, and it just kind of lets it go for a while. So that's just kind of one of my secrets. Another time is, you know, my high functioning anxiety pops up when I have too many projects going on, which is not unlikely. It actually happens kind of a lot, only because I have kind of a lot of things going on in my professional life, a little bit with my personal life, but definitely my professional life. I have lots of projects, and I have to be kind of careful.

And I notice it is when I actually, actually shut down, I don't necessarily work harder and push through it. It's more like I just want to check out, just kind of take leave, go take a breather, revisit what needs to be prioritized, and it really helps me get clear and prioritize what I need to do with my next steps. And, you know, that little niggling of confidence doesn't get shaken. I know that I just need to take a break and kind of revisit and basically prioritize. You know, another skill that I use a lot when that happens is this fantastic power skill of cognitive reframing. And I want you to kind of think of cognitive reframing as really like putting on a new pair of glasses that helps you see challenges as opportunities. So instead of thinking, ugh, I can't handle this, you start thinking, how can I handle this? It's really a simple shift, but it really makes a world of difference. It kind of gets you out of that spiral.

And let's not forget the power of self compassion. Often, we're our own worst critics, right? But what if you treated yourself with that same kindness and understanding, frankly, that you'd offer a friend or family? Imagine saying to yourself, hey, it's okay to feel anxious. It's just my brain's way of telling me to pay attention. This small act of kindness basically boosts your resilience and makes you a more empathic leader. Not only a leader of your own life, but if you're a leader in your business or at work. So that's basically it. I just wanted to pop in and remind you that you have mindfulness, cognitive reframing, and self compassion as neuroscience based power skills that can actually transform your high functioning anxiety. From a crippling force into, frankly, leadership strength.

But you have to always remember it's about understanding how your brain actually works and using that knowledge to your advantage. But before we wrap up today, I kind of want to really take a moment and just let's have just a moment of appreciation for yourself and for each other. You're here, you're learning. We all are taking steps to really turn our high functioning anxiety into our own personal superpower. And that's really something to be proud of. Not everyone does that. Not everyone sits back and says, how can I actually get better at this? So I just wanted to kind of pop in today and share the little short tidbit for you. I appreciate you joining me today on the Anxiety Ease podcast.

If you would, please leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps us out a lot. Also, if you want to see where you fall in the continuum of your high functioning anxiety, head on over to this link to take your quiz and get your personal score emailed to you.