After IV
Navigating Anxiety with Grace and Grit: 10 Tips for Anxious Times
 
Podcast Intro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

Jon Steele  0:09  
Hey everyone. I'm Jon Steele. And this is After IV: a podcast for InterVarsity alumni. Life after college is hard. And even a great experience with your InterVarsity chapter doesn't shield you from the challenges of transition. As we hear stories from real alumni learning how to make it in their post-InterVarsity reality, my hope is that this podcast will offer some encouragement, a few laughs and even some hope for the future. This is After IV, and these are your stories.

Welcome

Hello there, welcome to after for the podcast for InterVarsity alumni. I'm your host, Jon Steele. I hope you're doing great today. Very excited to kick off another episode with you. But before we do that, if you haven't done it yet, would you take just a second to subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, why not just go ahead and leave us a rating and a review to something like five stars love it host doesn't totally suck. Guests are fantastic. It's easy, it's quick, and you're helping out your fellow alumni by doing it much appreciated. All right, I'm really excited about today's episode and the next few episodes that follow because we're digging into a topic that's near and dear to my heart. And that I think matters to most of you, if not all of you out there. And that's mental health. We live in an age where the value for self care and therapy is at an all time high. And yet we're facing an ongoing mental health crisis. And I'm guessing that even if you don't personally identify as someone who's dealing with mental health issues on a daily basis, you probably know someone who is and I imagine you're experiencing those difficulties right alongside them. And let's be honest, with all the changes that come along with the transition to life after graduation, there is ample opportunity to experience significant changes in our mental health. And even if they aren't diagnosable. At a clinical level, it's just nice to have some skills to deal with those realities. So with that in mind over the next few weeks, we're going to spend time chatting with experts in the fields of anxiety, well being and healthy responses to the impact of this digital age that we live in. This week, we're joined by Dr. Barry Ries. Dr. Ries has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and has extensive experience in anxiety research treatments and education. And not the least of his accomplishments is that he was one of my masters professors back in grad school. So that's pretty cool. He's had a huge impact on my life and my professional trajectory. And I'm so excited to have him join us today, he's going to give us some helpful insights on understanding and managing anxiety and how to balance the realities of faith and mental health issues. One quick note, before we start, we touch on clinical levels of anxiety. But this is not a replacement for professional care. This conversation is meant to provide insights and useful tools for day to day anxiety, you know, moderate levels of anxiety. If you're dealing with anxiety that is regularly inhibiting your everyday functioning, please talk to someone you trust and seek out professional care. The topics we touch on today will be helpful, but they won't be enough to meet those needs. Okay, with all that in mind, here's Dr. Ries, and this one's for you alumni. 

Musical Interlude

Interview

Jon Steele
Barry.

Barry Ries
Jon.

Jon Steele
Or should I call you Dr. Ries? I don't know what to do here. 

Barry Ries
Barry’s just fine, Jon. 

Jon Steele
I'll call you Barry. Great. Well, Barry, welcome to the podcast.

Barry Ries  3:23  
Thank you. I'm glad to be here. 

Jon Steele  3:25  
Hey, well, it's always nice to have such a faithful listener join. 

Barry Ries  3:29  
Well, you know, as, as we've talked before, when you look at your demographics, I am one of two people in the 60 above category, the other being your mother that is.

Jon Steele  3:37  
That is exactly right. The two of you are holding that category very strong. Exactly. Well, I'm glad that you're here. Hey, before we jump in, well, you just give us an introduction.

Barry Ries  3:48  
I'm Barry Ries. I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Oklahoma State University. I started my educational career at a private four year college in Oklahoma, Oklahoma Christian University. I then majored in psychology and one got a counseling psychology master's degree at the University of Central Oklahoma, and then completed my PhD and clinical psychology at Oklahoma State go cowboys. Then did my internship and residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Jackson, VA. And then from there, I moved from Mississippi to Minnesota, little change in all kinds of cultural realms, and have been here for I think I'm starting my 28th year.

Jon Steele  4:37  
Wow, that is impressive. And you know, I'm really glad to know that I've been here for basically 50% of your time in Mankato. That's almost hard to believe 

Barry Ries
It is very hard to believe, and I'm surprised one of us has a left because because of that. 

Jon Steele
Absolutely. (laughs) So you know, teaching being a professor in the undergrad and grad school level at Minnesota State Mankato, you were one of my professors, which was quite an experience for both of us.

Barry Ries  5:05  
It was it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I've been a professor at Minnesota State since about 1996. And I've kind of had two tracks. I've had kind of had the faculty track. And then I've also done a stint in administration. You invited me here because of my anxiety expertise. Yes. And so let me give you a little bit of a background on that, please. I started in the anxiety and psychophysiology Research Laboratory at Oklahoma State, and worked with Dr. Dan McNeil. Then I went to Jackson for my residency and did two rotations in the Trauma Recovery Program at the VA were primarily worked with Vietnam veterans, but also then worked with some of the more closely related Iraq, Iran theater combat veterans. When I got to Minnesota State, I developed my anxiety and phobia Research Laboratory where I've done research with individuals that have had PTSD, trauma from tornadoes, math phobia, snake phobia, so Generalized Anxiety Disorder, so across the whole spectrum of anxiety disorders,

Jon Steele  6:21  
That feels like quite a range of experiences that you've had working with people with all sorts of anxiety disorders.

Barry Ries  6:28  
And then I think that was the challenges was kind of preparing for this interview is, we don't have time to go into the breadth of anxiety, when you look at PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, you know, obsessive compulsive disorder, I could go on and on with kind of those clinical syndromes, what I've decided to do is try to just focus on anxiety very broadly. And, you know, realizing that, you know, the way you interact and perhaps clinically assess and treat a person with generalized anxiety disorder, is going to be very different from the way you treat a person that has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But the core is the same, you still have that same working on those cognitive and behavioral issues that are going to stay the same. But the tack, or the approach may be different.

Jon Steele  7:21  
That makes a lot of sense. And you've already named a couple of these terms. But I mean, in the layman's world, we use a lot of psychological terminology, incorrectly or out of context, I would say, I mean, we hear people label themselves as OCD all the time. And that just means that they're more particular. Or maybe they're a little bit neater than the next person. I hear the word bipolar thrown out all the time. And it's just been somebody the sort of moody, I think many of us probably have a very incorrect understanding of a lot of this psychological terminology. And so, as you're already talking about as best as you can, at a general level, can you just help us understand what anxiety is in the clinical sense, before we dive into more of the ins and outs of this? 

Barry Ries
I'll try. 

Jon Steele
Okay. That's all I can ask.

Barry Ries  8:17  
Just as a side note, here, my dream job would be to live in Hollywood and be able to sit on the set as they are shooting movies and TV shows, and be the person that raises his hand and says, You know what? There's another diagnosis that would be more correct than dissociative identity disorder. Yes. So that's, that's my dream job. Because it happens all the time. Yeah. And it's one of those things where I've just kind of learned just to smile. And when asked, I will correct but otherwise, I'll just sit there quietly, which I know you find that hard to believe. 

Jon Steele
That is hard to believe. 

Barry Ries
You know, a lot of times when I talk about anxiety, I talk about anxiety, and I talk about panic, and I talk about fear, because these are three different constructs. But because of time limitations, I want to focus primarily on anxiety. Anxiety is this anticipation of threats that may or may not occur. So much of what causes us anxiety so much what causes us to worry will never come about, but yet we invest a lot of time and effort into what if, what if this happens? We've all had that experience where all of a sudden, the lights on a vehicle behind us start to go red and blue and we go Oh, no, he's coming after me. Right? And we have that adrenaline rush. At least I have that adrenaline rush is like Oh, no. But I have that sense of relief when he goes by me. So if you multiply that and you think about all the things in your life that you are concerned about, that never going to come to fruition, that's the way I look at anxiety. The other thing that I think making makes anxiety tricky is As we want a healthy level of anxiety in our lives interesting, it's a motivator. You know, so I'm sitting here this morning with a former student, that I'm sure there were some papers that I graded for you, or I gave you some feedback that wasn't easy to take. So as I was preparing for this, I was a little anxious because I was thinking maybe Jon's gonna get even with, he says, he's gonna take care of everything in editing. But how do I really know that? So that anxiety helps us prepare. If you think about athletics, you want to have a little bit of anxiety because your performance increases, where if you have too little anxiety, or too much anxiety, your performance then drops down significantly. So we want to have that in to try to find that balance is difficult, I would say that it becomes clinical, when it starts to interfere with our daily lives, when we have trouble making simple decisions, or engaging in day to day behaviors. Because we're afraid of what might happen, I kind of use that as an indicator of when a person might want to consider talking to a mental health provider, is when it starts to interfere with what they're doing on a daily basis. As I said, we all want some anxiety, it helps us learning what is enough anxiety and what is too much is key,

Jon Steele  11:37  
A couple of the things that are standing out to me, it's interesting that there's that juxtaposition of things that will versus things that may not ever happen causing significant anxiety. But then the other part of this being that there is actually a positive side to this, that is a motivator that gets you off the couch to do the things that need to get done. Exactly. And that's finding the line between what is an appropriate level of anxiety, and what is having an impact on your life in a negative way, that that's an important line to start discerning. So then let's narrow our focus just a little bit here. As far as the audience that we're talking about the people that we're considering, you have spent a lot of time with undergrad and grad students over the years, people who are writing the age range for this podcast. And I wonder Have you noticed changes in anxiety, either the things that are causing it that are increasing it? Or in ways that people are dealing with it?

Barry Ries  12:37  
Yes. Thankfully, some of the stigma associated with all mental health disorders has decreased over the last, you know, 10-15 years. Yeah, I think I'm seeing it more partly because it's more acceptable. And again, the question then, for me becomes, when is it a clinical anxiety? And when is it more of this normal anxiety that we've already talked about? With regards to some changes that I've seen in students over the last couple of years. And this may not be an easy thing for them to hear. But I think it's very important., I think one of the ways they tried to deal with anxiety is by avoidance. And one of the things that I want to share with you and the audience is, there's this thing called the negative reinforcement. Yes. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So basically, with negative reinforcement, what happens is, when you avoid or escape, that's rewarding. And when something is rewarding, it increases the likelihood that it'll occur in the future. So for example, I've dealt with many people that have dental anxiety. In fact, my dissertation was on dental anxiety. And most people can relate to dental anxiety man who wants to go to the dentist and have a root canal or cavity filled. So if you're really anxious about that, you might make the appointment, you're ready to go to the dentist, you start to get really anxious and maybe have some physiological responses, upset stomach changing, breathing muscle tension, and then you decide I'm going to cancel. And when you cancel all of that negative aspect, that negative physiology you're experiencing, goes away. And there's that negative reinforcement. We want to make sure that our behaviors aren't basically continuing, creating an environment where we can be anxious. And so when I deal with anyone, whether they're students or adults, that are 40-50 years old, I want to talk about avoiding Send escape, and how that's the opposite of what you want to do. You know, one of the treatments we do for anxiety disorders is we expose people to that which they fear. And that's very uncomfortable. But we also know that it's very successful, if they will continue to face that fear.

Jon Steele  15:19  
More often than not, once you do sit down in the dental chair, the things that you're afraid of happening, just they don't happen. And you start to say, like, oh, well, there's actually fewer and fewer reasons for me to feel anxious about being here.

Barry Ries  15:31  
You did listen in my classes. Wow!

Jon Steele  15:35  
I did believe it or not! That is really interesting, because it feels so counterintuitive. Are there things that you are seeing that are contributing more and more to anxiety?

Barry Ries  15:46  
Yeah, I actually was going to jump in and kind of give the textbook example of, of what contributes to higher level anxiety, but I'm gonna put that on the back burner for just a second, as you ask that question, social media, I often say to my classes, I can't imagine what would be like being a high school student right now. And having all of those demands all of the bullying that occurs easily on social media, things that can happen fairly anonymously. And you can see things that happen, you know, a person's live streaming, you can see right after a building has blown up, or perhaps even be in the school, during some type of mass shooting. And people get caught up in that. And they'll watch and they'll spend hours and hours and hours watching the news. And they'll come in and they'll say, but it's making me so anxious. Stop watching.

Jon Steele  16:49  
Yeah, suddenly, the worst things globally are now just in my living room with me. And I can see very real images, which makes danger feel so much closer.

Barry Ries  17:01  
Yes, exactly. And so think about that from that high school student. Yeah. Or even that middle school, junior high student, elementary student, and they have that instilled in them at a much younger age than you would have. And of course, then I would have, and I think that's part of what's contributing to that. So now with the textbook response, yes, of course, we have physiology, genetics, some of us are predisposed to have anxiety disorders, we can see that in lots of research that's been done across the years. A good example of that is hyper arousal. Some of us are just more keyed up than others, we have an exaggerated startle response. Maybe we're sitting around a bonfire and we're bouncing our legs the entire time.

Jon Steele  17:58  
Just so everybody knows that's a dig at me.

Barry Ries  18:03  
But but so there's that it's kind of its genetic, it's biology, but also it's hard to sort out, when does that genetic biology become learned? Because a lot of times we'll have learned behaviors with anxiety from watching our parents, or siblings. And the question then becomes is it genetic? Or is it learned? Yeah. And my easy response to that is yes, yes. Yeah, it's both. Yeah. The other thing and you alluded to this earlier, is our cognitions. We don't think about some of those automatic thoughts that we have. What if Jon doesn't like me? What if I'm on the podcast, I sputter across a few words? What if? That's a big question that people spend a lot of time thinking about? What's that worst outcome? And guess what? It's not going to happen. But yet it contributes to that cycle of anxiety. Unfortunately, some of us have experienced some significant traumatic events. I've worked with individuals that have had PTSD from combat, from tornadoes, from sexual abuse, from the Oklahoma City bombing. And those those are tough and those things that happen in our life. We need to talk about them. We need to find a way to process them and not let it grab a hold. And it's so hard. There's there's just no way to escape that. But there's a purpose there. You know, when I lost my son almost 13 years ago, you were here and you know how difficult that was for me. And we've continued to have that dialogue. But I think you've also seen how God has used that, for me to have discussions with other people, to be calm an outlet for people, nothing that I would ever wish on anyone. But Lee and I both feel that that's part of the purpose. You know, Michael passed away, we then can help others deal with a very difficult situation.

Jon Steele  20:33  
Barry, you're starting to, you're simultaneously starting to answer two of my next questions here, which is really great. Thank you for thank you for setting this up so nicely, 

Barry Ries
I knew you needed to help. 

Jon Steele
I always need help. One, what are some healthy strategies that there is some amount of ownership in this situation of how are you going to step into these realities? But then also, the other question that I want us to sort of walk through together is a biblical perspective of anxiety and worry, where is that line? Let's continue down the road of healthy strategies. First, what are some healthy strategies people can use, if they have been diagnosed, or if they're just people that are recognizing like, I've just, I feel a little anxious more often than I would like to? Are there things that we can do to alleviate or improve those things?

Barry Ries  21:20  
Yes, and none of this is going to be a surprise to anybody, because it's going to be things that we've heard for years as to what we should do. And this cuts across the majority of the psychological disorders that people are likely to struggle with, you know, thinking about the audience, and all of the exciting things that they have in front of them. And I think there's some things they need to be careful of, and at the top of the list, I put sleep, oh, wow, okay, you know, it's starting a new job moving to a new town, being in graduate school, you know, whatever that exciting opportunity is, you're going to be somewhat seduced to put your sleep on the back burner. So try to get the amount of sleep that you need. I'm not going to say it's eight hours, but everybody knows the amount of sleep that they need. So work on getting that sleep, exercise, find the time to get to the gym, to go for a walk, to do whatever it is that you find enjoyable, to get that heart rate up. And you know, it's also a time that you can listen to a podcast or listening to music while you're exercising. I also think it's important for everyone to know how to do some type of relaxation, whether that's yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, you know, meditation, what ever it is. And to incorporate with that is deep breathing exercises. So many times when we become anxious, it affects our breathing. And we don't even know it, you know, and like right now, as I'm talking with you, I'm paying attention to my physiology. And guess what I'm tense. That's from what we're doing right now. And so I'm trying to relax my muscles in my neck, I'm trying to pay attention to my breathing. And so taking care of those small things are going to make a huge difference. Specific to anxiety, watch your intake of caffeine, because that caffeine is going to basically make you a little edgy. The other thing I would say is don't isolate, spend time with friends and family. I'm not talking zoom. I'm not talking, you know, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever. I'm talking spend time face to face with people that you care for, and people that care for you. It takes time. And as you're going to find your schedule is going to get busier and busier. And it's more difficult to find time to get together. We know that. How hard is it to schedule a night for three people to get together for a bonfire?

Jon Steele  24:13  
I know it's unbelievable.

Barry Ries  24:16  
It's ridiculous, but it happens. So a key thing I want to say is ask yourself when you're dealing with anxious situations. Is it under my control? And if it's under your control, then get off the couch, as you said and do something about it. If it's outside of your control, let it go. This sounds simple, but it's very powerful. I've dealt with with patients where when they started using this they would come back in and say you know Dr. Ries, I don't need the see you anymore. Because this helps. I asked myself is this under my control? And if it's not, I don't worry about it. Now, not every story is that successful. But I think it's something you should try.

Jon Steele  25:08  
Yeah, I really appreciate that, that so many of those do feel like things that put control into my hands that if I'm feeling anxious about something, I've got this list of very simple tools that I can implement. And all of those are practices that somebody right after graduation should be stepping into immediately and developing whether or not they experience anxiety on a regular basis. Those are just good things to do, no matter what, Barry, let's step into biblical context here. As we've said, you're a follower of Jesus living in this psychology world. Where is this line? When we think about a biblical perspective of anxiety and worry, I there seems like a lot of potential I'll say, particularly in a Christian context, for there to be shame or ridicule around the idea of anxiety, because we're told Do not be anxious about anything. So how do we hold that in tension with the realities of mental health?

Barry Ries  26:07  
Yeah, that's a great question, Jon, Christians are not immune to physical or psychological issues. I mean, we see that in Scripture. Paul had a thorn in the flesh. We don't know what that was. It might have been, could it have been a psychological disorder? Could have been? We don't know. It's one of the questions that I will ask when I get to the pearly gates. Yes, Moses had trouble speaking, perhaps a stutter. Perhaps he just spoke slowly, I don't know. But Christians are not immune to psychological issues. But we do have other tools at our disposal. I think we should look at what those are, and consider using them. First of all, if you want to find a Christian psychologist, they're out there. With telehealth, you can easily hook up now with a Christian psychologist, Philadelphia, Dallas, wherever, it doesn't matter. But we have hope. Philippians four, do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And then finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent, or praiseworthy, think about those things. So you probably recognize those words I do. Yes, words are from a song that was commissioned by the musicians in Mankato for my son in his memory. And it's one of the things that I hold dear to my heart. And it's one of the things that I think of frequently, I'm sure you have special passages, that means something to you. Think about those things, hold on to them. Another thing I want to encourage people to do is to consider where their focus is. So many times I see that when people are dealing with anxiety or other psychological disorders, their focus is so much inward, their me focused, and one of the things that you can do to help yourself is to change that and to become outward focused. What can you do to help other people? Because by doing that, you're going to help yourself. So how can we be more Christ? Like how can we help other people, when you're at work, or even in graduate school, every day, you have opportunities, if you can just look for what those are, and seek those and be willing to get a little uncomfortable, step out of that comfort zone, and find a way to be Christ-like.

Jon Steele  29:19  
It's so interesting to me that as you answer this question right here, it also continues to answer the previous question, what Paul gives in the later portion of that, you know, whatever is true, whatever is noble think about these things. I mean, that he's almost giving therapeutic advice. If anxiety is something that is knocking on your door, turn your focus outward and think about these things instead of just turning inward and focusing on the anxiety itself. And I love that, you know, this perspective of as followers of Jesus that we have even more tools, we are not restricted to but we have II than more things that we can draw from, to find hope to find meaning even in the midst of difficult things.

Barry Ries  30:07  
I think the Bible is the best psychological tool that we have, you know, I encourage you at some point to read through the New Testament from that perspective, and look at all of the guidance there is with what we should be doing in our lives, that lines up with those behavioral and cognitive theories that we use in our lot of our treatments anyway.

Jon Steele  30:32  
We can maximize the negative and minimize the positive so often, and spending time poring over scripture, that really opens us up to focus on the hope that we have, even in the midst of difficulty. So Barry, you have the ear of recent grads here of young InterVarsity alumni who are stepping into exciting new things, but also very real challenges. Stepping into maybe it's a grad school experience of some sort, that could induce a lot of anxiety for someone just stepping into the marketplace that could induce a lot of anxiety for someone, we've given a lot of really helpful tools here, what's left in your bag of tools here, you can give as a final piece of advice to somebody stepping into that season of life.

Barry Ries  31:21  
First of all, embrace it for the exciting time that it is, I encourage you to reframe the anxiety that you're dealing with and starting a new job. And being in a new location. Being in graduate school as not anxiety, but excitement, because one of the big differences there is excitement is something that we feel like we have control over. It's under your control. Don't avoid, don't escape, take risks. Ask yourself, What is the worst thing that could happen? failures, okay, we all learn from those mistakes, as I've been in rolls where I'm inviting students to graduate programs, or I'm hiring people to run programs. I don't want people that had been free of failure. I want people that have failed, and learn from it, and then have come back stronger than they were before. So don't worry about that. Keep those college relationships active, that helps to know that someone is there going to the Father on your behalf, we have to remember that we have a God who loves us. The Holy Spirit intercedes with us on a daily if not hourly basis. So James 1234. And this is a hard verse for us to digest at times, counted all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. I really think that is what God wants for us. And when you're going through something, it's sometimes it's hard to see what is God's plan. And we often say, but God, my plans better, you really want to say that out loud. You know, it's like, God knows the end game. I don't. So if I just release, and give it all to God, I'm going to find that that's going to help with my anxiety, and the other trials and tribulations that I'm going to face in life.

Jon Steele  33:49  
While we've covered a lot of really helpful ground here. But I think one of the things that feels most helpful to me is just the reframing of so many of these things, shifting focus and saying, but what are the things that I can control? Where are the places that I can find hope, we know that we have hope in I mean, our everlasting God, and in the work that Jesus has done for us and will continue to do in us and through us.

Barry Ries  34:11  
It's been my privilege. I enjoy listening to your podcast, my wife and I often listen to it and we're traveling. It makes me proud to know that you're doing what you love, and you're doing it to edify others and to glorify God. And you know, we've had lots of discussions regarding what your career should look like. Yes, we have and you should be proud with what you've accomplished.

Jon Steele  34:37  
Well, I appreciate that very much, Barry, that means a lot coming from you because I know that you don't just hand out compliments. I know from personal experience. So much of that is because of you. I remember very vividly you and me sitting down and having a conversation when I had gotten rejected from every PhD that I applied to minus the one that just decided not to respond To me at all, and talking through some, even some of the relief that I was experiencing in the midst of that, and you were the one who said, Maybe you should listen to that, do you think that there could be something different. And there's been a lot of people who have had important influences in my life, but that is one of those linchpin moments for me where my priorities flipped upside down. And I said, Wow, this InterVarsity gig that I've been saying no to for a while, maybe this is actually what I'm supposed to do. And here we sit today, at least in part because of your wisdom and insight in my life. So I'm very grateful for that and grateful for you sharing some of those things with our listeners while

Barry Ries  35:39  
You're very kind. Thank you.

Musical Interlude

Wrap up

Jon Steele  35:43  
Alright, you've heard me say it before, I love walking away from a conversation with a guest with some practical next steps. So allow me to curate a list for you from this conversation and to provide two frames for how you might approach them. First frame. If you notice that you're experiencing moderate levels of anxiety, and you need tools to manage that this list will help second frame if you're simply wanting some healthy practices as you start your new post graduation life rhythms, this list will help. So here are 10 tools from Dr. Ries for managing anxiety and establishing healthy rhythms. First, reduce social media use, we're actually going to talk more about this in the coming weeks. Second, get enough sleep. Third, exercise, move your body. Fourth, learn some relaxation exercises, things like yoga or meditation. And right alongside that, number five, learn some deep breathing exercises that you can use with relaxation. Six, limit your caffeine intake. Number seven, spend face to face time with friends and family. Number eight, identify what is and what is not within your control. Number nine, meditate on Scripture. And number 10. Focus outside of yourself. consider implementing a few of these and report back what's been most helpful. What's your system for consistent implementation? Are there other practices that you've used that aren't on the list? Let's learn from each other jump on Instagram and comments on this episode post or send me a DM and let's chat. I'd love to hear about your experiences. Barry, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for helping us develop a healthier understanding of anxiety and how to manage it, especially as followers of Jesus. And thanks so much for not sharing too many embarrassing stories. It means a lot that you share this time with us. I hope to hang out with you all again next week as we continue this broader conversation around mental health. We'll be chatting with Purdue University professor Dr. Louis Tay. He's an expert in the field of wellbeing and we're going to talk about ways to pursue optimal functioning and flourishing or as Dr. Tay puts it, loving God and having godly loves. Tune in again next week. And I'll see you in the after, alumni.

Podcast Outro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today, Alumni. If there was anything that you learned, really enjoyed, or that encouraged you from today's episode, would you send us a DM or tag us in a story? We'd love to hear about it. You can find us @afterivpod on Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven't already, take just a second to unlock your phone and subscribe to the podcast. If your platform lets you, leave us a rating and a review. And if you like what we're doing here, share us with your InterVarsity or other post-graduation friends. Thanks again for listening. And I will see you in the after, Alumni.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai