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Hello everyone. Welcome to the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today I like to talk about anxiety and overthinking I was reading a super nice book by Nick Trenton called Stop Overthinking, and Overthinking is It's a nightmare. And I believe it's a nightmare not only for me but for all of us. For example, since I was very young, you know, I am a victim of anxiety, you know, all the time. I'm thinking I'm behind, I need to do things, or this is a threat. What is happening? And recently, for example, when I see all this, I would say revolution in terms of emerging technologies, and this, and I'm talking a lot about that, then it becomes truly a nightmare because, you know, it's not because I'm talking about that, that I don't feel society on how the future will look like. And on this book and Nick Trenton said about one technique and that I noticed it's a technique that is used a lot in hospitals to work with the post-traumatic disorder, to work with compulsive thinking. And it's called five, four, three, two, one. And the aim is to bring you back to the present. So instead of you thinking about potential threats that we will bring to your job next month, you just stop thinking about that and bring it to the present moment. And how do you do that? It's a very simple process.
Basically, you will count down from 5 to 1, and these numbers are five, four, three, two, and one. They are cues to help you to explore your senses. So you will start looking at five different things. So this is the five. So you will see it, for example, in your office, in your home office, in your house, or in your car. And you will try to see and dedicate time to perceive the details of anything. You can look at your printer, You can look out your window and see the leaves flying. You can look at your dog or your pet and see him or her moving. You can see your colleague. You can look at your monitor, your webcam, to your cup of coffee. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you should pay attention deeply to every single aspect of what you see. Then you move to number four. Number four is all related to sounds. So what would you do? You should try to listen to any sounds. And I'm not telling you that you should listen to nice music or nice sounds. No, I'm talking about the sound of a printer. The sound of the coffee machine. You know, the sound of someone speaking on the phone. The sound of a beep on a cell phone.
What do you want? You want to perceive. You want to dedicate your full mind to see and try to identify and get the details of that sound. Then you go to number three. Number three is feel. So you should touch three different objects in your task. For example, I have in front of me a stress ball, and I have all the toys, you know, these office toys. So, you know, while I'm telling you now and recording this podcast, I'm holding in my hands now I stress ball. So we feel you feel the pressure, you feel the shape. Then you go to number two. It's all about smell. So you should smell okay. What is the smell of paper? The smell of your shirt or your dress? The smell of perfume, the smell of the coffee you have in front of you, you know. And it does not need to be, I would say, a pleasant smell. No, no, it can be, for example, the smell of the car moving and the rubber on the road. It can be, but you pay attention to that smell. And then number one is about taste. So it's the taste in your mouth. For example, if you are chewing bubble gum, the taste of the bubble gum, the taste of, I would say, the toothpaste you used in the morning, but you try to explore this and what do we want with that? We don't want you to identify the best taste or the best smell.
It's not about that. We want just to bring you to your basic senses, to who you are at that specific moment. As I said, I recorded episodes on this podcast talking about mindfulness. And, of course, I'm very anxious. So I do mindfulness exercises almost every day. Now I'm starting to use these five, four, three, two, one. Many times when I feel this deep anxiety, you know, when I have hundreds of things to do, and I don't have time and emails popping up, everything, messages popping up, I'm getting late with everything. And I do that because this helps me to frame my mind and brings me to reality. So think about that. It's a super simple five, four, three two, one five things to see, four sounds, three things to fill, two things to smell, one thing to taste. And these, in a simple few minutes, will bring you back to reality, will help you to manage your anxiety, and probably make you stop overthinking. So think about that, and I hope this would help you to deliver your projects in a better way see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
