6 Magic Words That Stop Anxiety & Overwhelm | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Mel recorded this from a Salt Lake City hotel room after catching herself in a worry spiral

  With about an hour before a convention center speech, Mel described what had just happened. Her daughter Sawyer, 24, is on a planned four-month solo backpacking trip and was in Australia doing solo hikes. Two days after posting a sunrise photo from a summit (a roughly five-mile hike started at 4 a.m.), she hadn't messaged on WhatsApp or Instagram, and her location showed only a spinning wheel.

• 02

  The mind jumps to horror-movie scenarios in a nanosecond

  Instead of assuming Sawyer met friends, her phone died or she was simply busy living, Mel's mind went straight to: she fell off the mountain, she was kidnapped, she was assaulted on the trail. Standing in her underwear brushing her teeth at 6:15 a.m., she noticed she had inflicted self-torture before even having water or coffee. She says listeners' messages show the same pattern with money, jobs and kids.

• 03

  The six words: 'What if it all works out?'

  First, the phrase hits the brakes on the 'locomotive of worry.' Second, because it's a question, you pause and consider it, and realize you don't actually know what will happen. It is logically true that things could work out, so you aren't lying to yourself. Mel stresses this isn't 'lipstick on a pig' but using logic to interrupt a habit.

• 04

  Most worries never happen

  Mel cites a Penn State study on chronic worriers: the average person has three to four major worries a day, and 91% of them turned out to be false. Of the 9% that did happen, the outcome was much better than expected about a third of the time. Her math leaves roughly a 6% chance of the bad outcome, and her stance is 'if something bad happens, I will deal with it then.' She also says research suggests about one in three people struggle with constant worry.

• 05

  The Buddhist teaching of the two arrows

  When misfortune strikes, two arrows fly. Life fires the first one into your heart: the missing text, a breakup, the number on the scale, a $1,000 car repair, a scary cough. The second arrow is the one you fire into your own forehead with your reaction and catastrophizing. You can't stop the first, but you can grab the second out of the air.

• 06

  Psychology calls this primary versus secondary emotion

  Your primary emotional response is the immediate hit, like shock and despair when someone dies. The secondary response is what lingers, such as long-term grief. Mel says research shows you have little control over the first but many ways to shorten the second, and worry is a secondary response you can work on.

• 07

  Worrying makes you experience the pain twice

  If the bad thing doesn't happen, you suffered for nothing; if it does, you suffered in anticipation too. Mel has been fired twice and says she could feel one coming and tortured herself for a month, which changed nothing. Once she got over the humiliation, getting fired felt liberating, since you usually get fired from a job you can't stand or aren't performing in.

• 08

  Catastrophizing damages your ability to solve real problems

  Drawing on Dr. Judy Willis, whom she interviewed for The High 5 Habit, Mel explains that worry triggers the sympathetic fight-flight-freeze system, which impairs executive function in the prefrontal cortex: focus, decision-making and problem-solving. Even if the worst happens, say Sawyer were hurt and needed help, an arrow in your forehead makes you worse at handling it. Mel's own plan: if she didn't hear from Sawyer in 72 hours, she would switch to problem-solving.

• 09

  Painful thoughts light up the same pathways as physical pain

  Mel cites work associated with Dr. Arthur Barsky of Harvard Medical School on stress causing physical pain: headaches, nausea, a stomach 'in knots.' She describes studies showing painful thoughts activate the same neural pathways as physical pain, and math anxiety research from a University of Chicago psychology professor who likened anticipating a math problem to burning your hand on a hot stove.

• 10

  Hypervigilance from a chaotic childhood can be kept without the pain

  Mel says people who grew up waiting for the other shoe to drop often scan for danger constantly; she did too. Seeing around corners can be an intuitive superpower. The goal isn't to lose that radar but to stop escalating before anything has happened.