E 262 The 4 Ways People Handle Anxiety (Find Yours)

 Have you ever wondered why breathing techniques that work for your friends leave you feeling more anxious? Or why everyone tells you to "just relax" when your mind won't stop spinning?

After years of helping people manage anxiety, I've discovered something crucial: we've been treating anxiety like it's one-size-fits-all, when it's actually as unique as your fingerprint.

In this episode, I break down the 4 distinct anxiety navigation styles:
THE THINKER - You analyze everything, searching for the "why" behind every anxious moment. Your brain processes those 60,000 daily thoughts by dissecting each one.
THE DOER - You can't sit still when anxiety hits. You clean, exercise, organize - anything to channel that energy into productive action.
THE FEELER - You dive deep into emotions, absorbing the energy of everyone around you while processing feelings on a profound level.
THE DREAMER - You escape into imagination, books, creativity, and rich inner worlds when anxiety becomes overwhelming.

Here's the truth: there's nothing wrong with your natural way of handling anxiety. You're not broken because meditation doesn't work for you. You're simply working with a different operating system.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER:

Research-backed strategies tailored to your specific navigation style
Why traditional anxiety advice might not work for you
The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique for Thinkers
How to channel anxiety energy purposefully as a Doer
"Name it to Tame It" strategies for Feelers
Reality check techniques for Dreamers
How to become the captain of your own ship toward calmer waters

TAKE THE FREE QUIZ: https://forms.gle/D1g1p3S7PXEPUaj48
Discover your personal anxiety navigation style and get a customized toolkit of strategies that actually work for your unique brain.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction - Why anxiety strategies fail
2:30 The Thinker - Analysis and overthinking
6:15 The Doer - Action-based anxiety management
10:45 The Feeler - Emotional processing and empathy
15:20 The dreamer - Creative escape and imagination
19:30 Your personalized toolkit
22:00 Taking the quiz and next steps

Remember: your anxiety isn't your enemy. It's your mind and body working overtime to keep you safe. Understanding your navigation style helps you work with your nature instead of against it.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

National Institute of Mental Health study on analytical thinking and rumination
Harvard Medical School research on exercise and anxiety
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology empathy study

CONNECT WITH ME:

Website: https://www.betterregulatethannever.com/
Instagram: @cynthiacoufalcoaching
Podcast: The Teen Anxiety Maze  https://podfollow.com/the-teen-anxiety-maze
Free Quiz: https://forms.gle/D1g1p3S7PXEPUaj48

If this episode helped you understand your anxiety in a new way, please subscribe for more evidence-based strategies for managing anxiety and finding calm.

DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or t

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Transcript

[00:00:00] If you're struggling to figure out why anxiety is hitting you so hard or why some coping strategies work for your friends, but they don't work for you, today is the day for you to find out what that's all about and you're not alone. What I decided for my five year anniversary month is to showcase different episodes that I've had over these five years, because especially if you're a new listener, you're probably not gonna go back and listen to 200 other episodes, but I want to showcase them and show different things, and so I came up with a way to sort of categorize different ways that people.

Navigate through anxiety and I came up with four different types of navigation styles and I also created a quiz that [00:01:00] when you answer the questions, you can find out which one of these four styles is most like you. And I created a Spotify playlist that has episodes of mine. That fit for that style, and, and it gives you tips and tricks that you can use for your pers your specific style.

And I put some music on there too, that it's not even necessarily music that I like, it's just music that kind of fits for that personality type. And so either you'll, you'll experience some new music that maybe you haven't heard before, find some new favorites. Maybe you'll be like, Ugh, I don't like this.

Song, but the, but the podcast episodes will be good even if you don't like the music. I just thought it would be so fun to do. And so if you are interested afterwards or even stopping this, going, taking it and coming back, either way it will work because you'll learn about the four styles. [00:02:00] And if you're just gonna listen and watch today, that's fine.

And maybe you can just sort of think about which one seems like you, and then go take the quiz later and get the, hit the playlist. So, or I even thought of this as knowing this as the way I am when I take a quiz and it says that I'm something, but I really feel like I might be some of the others. If anyone's like, I just want all four playlists because I wanna know, you know, what are the episodes for all of 'em and what are the songs for all of 'em, just let me know and I'll send 'em all to you.

But I just think that this is a fun way to celebrate that my five years and a fun way to kind of put all of these episodes together. 'cause there's just so many and it's hard for anyone to really, it becomes overwhelming. I don't want my podcast to be overwhelming. Obviously I want you to be calm and feel good.

So this is a way for you to like go, like get a kind of like a guide for which ones you should listen [00:03:00] to,

and understanding your personal, your personal anxiety navigation style will just help you manage anxiety, and that's what this whole podcast is about. So we're gonna go over the four different types, and they are the thinker, the doer, the feeler, and the dreamer. And for each one of those, I'm gonna tell you what it is.

I'm gonna tell you some statistics about that particular type and then some action actionable strategies that I have taught somewhere in my program or in my podcast. I pretty much everything that's in my program is in my podcast. The great thing about the program is you get to work with me face-to-face, and we get to work through your own real life.

Situations with the techniques, but just like with podcasts that I've learned from, sometimes I listen to a podcast and they tell how to do something. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna practice that or try that in my life or in my business. And I [00:04:00] do those things. But then later I'm like, I actually just wanna work with that person so that they can, like, I love this way.

It was helpful to me and I just want their. Eyes on my life and helping me. And so then I just, uh, get into their programs or coaching. And so you are always able to do that too after you hear something and you're like, I love that. I want you to help me with my specific problem. Come on in. I would love to help you with that.

So each of these are kind of just different ways that people deal with anxiety. So the first one is the thinker. And so the thinker, these are people who obviously like to analyze things, they wanna ruminate and think about something for a while, and, so when anxiety strikes, their first instinct is to dive into the why and the how.

Why is this happening? How is this happening? How can I deal with it? And just like [00:05:00] going through a whole bunch of processes in their mind, they want to understand the root cause of anxiety. They wanna dissect all of their thoughts and are constantly kind of spinning around in those, and they wanna find a logical solution.

And so this can be cause paralysis with them because they have, they've become overwhelmed with like the what ifs and the hows and the, you know, just spin around and all of those things. And because our brain every human brain has about 60,000 thoughts a day, some of us pay attention to them more than others, but a thinker would really pay attention to those 60,000 things or, or try to.

And it just becomes overwhelming because they're trying to dissect all these thoughts and then they, they just get so overloaded that they become paralyzed. And I have, you will probably find yourself in all of [00:06:00] these as I. Did as I was putting this together. But there are people that are definitely more thinkers than others.

And statistics say that according to the National Institute for Mental Health, individuals with more analytic cognitive style or thinking styles of dealing with really all challenges, they are often prone to rumination because that. They wanna be in their brain and they're thinking about a lot of stuff and we have all those thoughts in there anyway.

And anxious thoughts are very uncomfortable and scary sometimes. And this is actually a key component in generalized anxiety disorder. Now that's, I don't diagnose people in my program. I just help people manage whatever anxiety they have. But, um, generalized anxiety disorder is a diagnosis that a therapist could, uh, diagnose you or a doctor could diagnose you with.

And sometimes medication is part of that, but so, because rumination is [00:07:00] kind of a main component of generalized anxiety disorder, it would make sense that thinkers ruminate in, you know, there, there's an anxiety component to that. So here's a few things you could try. To help you if you're a thinker with anxiety.

So the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding technique. We've talked about this before in the podcast and probably even practiced it, but, um, first you think about five things you can see. So when you're feeling that anxiety come over you, and especially if you think it's gonna kind of like start paralyzing you, you need to ground yourself the present and actually.

I can't reach it from here, but I have a, um, physical survival kit that you can create that has things for all your five senses, which is what the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 thing is about your senses, which grounds you to the present. Because when you think about it, anxiety is either about past rumination about things you said or did, or future rum [00:08:00] rumination about.

The what ifs or the uncertainty. And so we want you to stay here right now because if you think about it in this very second, you are safe. Everything is fine. You know, we don't have to worry about the next minute or the last minute. It's like right now we're fine and that helps to ground you. But 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5 things you can see.

So you look around and you like focus on five different things. You can see. Four things you can feel. And that could be, you know, feeling the desk or the arms of the chair you're in, or feeling the weight of your bottom on the seat or feeling your feet on the floor feeling the fabric of your clothes.

Just different things like that. Three things you can hear. And sometimes, like my office is super quiet right now. No one is in my house. Uh, I'm the only one here. So if I really listen, I can hear the ticking of the clock, [00:09:00] but that is about it. And then if the air came on, I would hear that. Or uh, if someone you know was here and they were walking around or whatever, two things you can smell.

And that one I think is sometimes hard to do because I guess if I really think about it, I could maybe smell paper smell. 'cause I have a lot of paper in here, kinda like book smell. And I have an air freshener in here, so I do smell that. And then one thing you can taste and sometimes that one's hard.

That's why I like my survival kit. 'cause it has some nuclear warheads. You know, those are really sour candies. Or you could have cinnamon candies in there, or gum in there. Anything that would just have a taste to it and, you know, bring you into the present. But usually the more shocking taste, like a super sour or super hot taste is good.

And then scheduling worry time because you're a thinker and you wanna think about stuff, but you don't wanna just be spinning in it all day long 'cause you won't get anything done. [00:10:00] Schedule a worry time, which is just a 15 minute timeframe that you set the timer. I'm gonna worry at four o'clock for 15 minutes and so at four o'clock.

You and you make sure that if this is a time you can actually sit down and worry, you know? So you'll change it depending, but don't make it right before bed. And I don't like to make it right in the morning 'cause it kind of gets your day started off, blah. So I would say just some mid time after school or work before supper or doing other things so that you can kind of get out of that rumination time.

But you just set a timer and you know, anytime a worry pops up. Anytime of the day, you just either write it down or make a note or make a voice note and say, okay, four o'clock or whatever your time is, I'll worry about that then. And what you'll actually find is when that time comes, you'll either not care about that thing anymore.

You'll be like, oh, whatever. That wasn't that big of a deal. Or you then give yourself time to worry about it and you know, [00:11:00] with the what ifs and the whatever. But when the time is up, then you're done and you wait until the next time. That it's worry time and you can have one every day, but it's only 15 minutes.

And also challenge your thoughts. So ask yourself those questions that we've talked about before. But is this a hundred percent true? You know, like if you're thinking, well, everyone hates me, or I don't have any friends, or I don't fit in, or whatever, is that a hundred percent true? And I can guarantee you nothing is a hundred percent true.

You're gonna have those glimmers where that wasn't true. Then think about, okay, so what if you know, I actually do fit in? Or what if people do like me and at least make it a 50 50? You know, maybe there are some people that don't like you. There's some people who don't like me. Um, and that's fine. The majority of the people do, or even just make it like, okay, well these people don't like me, but these people do.

Or, I don't fit in sometimes in these circles, but I definitely fit in in these circles. Or, you know, at this time [00:12:00] or this person or whatever. So just trying to make it more balanced and reframing all of the negative, like never and should and whatever to things that feel better. And then we have the doer.

So the doer. Navigates anxiety by taking action. And so they don't like to sit still with their feelings. They wanna get up and, and they wanna clean, they wanna exercise, they wanna work, they wanna organize they like to distract themselves and feel productive. And. That can be effective. Like I don't wanna, I don't want you to always distract 'cause we've got to deal with our emotions and our feelings and we've gotta sit with being uncomfortable.

But we don't wanna always be doing that. And sometimes we're at work or sometimes as a parent, you know, we've gotta get something done and you know, we feel anxious or upset or whatever, but we still have to do the work anyway because that's just life. And so sometimes we do need to distract ourselves [00:13:00] or.

You know, move away from that feeling and then feel it later. And so it, because you're a doer, we're gonna need to find some things that help you to manage your anxiety that's active. And exercise is a proven tool. The research from the Harvard Medical School shows that 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise can be effective as an anti-anxiety.

Can be as effective as anti-anxiety medications. And, and I lo, I love that it, they mentioned moderate intensity. So just like walking around, shuffling your feet probably isn't going to be as effective as anti-anxiety medication. But doing something where you kind of get sweaty, you get outta breath, your heart has to beat pretty fast.

Those things can be helpful to you. Is really connected. You know, we talked about fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. And so fight and flight are connected with doer [00:14:00] because they either wanna fight against the anxiety by doing, you know, being busy and doing tasks or flight, which means physically moving away from the anxiety and staying busy kind of in those ways too.

So, some of the tips that I wanna tell you, if you're a doer. Is you're gonna channel your anxiety. So when you feel anxious it's okay if you are a doer or if this is, you know, if you need physical activity to go for a brisk walk or to organize a messy drawer, or to do 10 minute yoga, something, you know, something that moves your body and.

Again, we don't wanna always distract all the time and never feel our feelings because even though that's what we'd like to do, 'cause we don't wanna be uncomfortable. We do need to feel 'em and we do need to process them. But in those times where you, you can at that time or you need to have some movement first, it's totally fine to go for a walk while you're maybe processing some of that [00:15:00] anxiety.

Or if organizing or a more movement like yoga type thing, um, is good for you. Then use the one thing rule. So if you have, like if you feel overwhelmed or you have like this big project, instead of thinking about the whole picture and how overwhelming that is, think about what's one thing I can do right now?

That will move me forward towards whatever it is that I wanna do. People who want to start exercising but feel like they can't make themselves go to the gym, you can start with one thing, like put your exercise shoes on go drive towards the gym. I don't know, like those things that kind of just get you going in the right direction.

A lot of times that'll be enough to push you over to actually do the thing. But anytime, like if you're thinking about homework or something like that, just do one page, just read one page, you know, whatever. What is something you absolutely can do? [00:16:00] And then after you do that, then how do you feel after that?

And then having a purposeful pause. So a lot of times when you are a doer, you're just up being busy all the time. Just to be busy so that you don't have to feel anything. At some point you are gonna need to feel it. So have a purposeful pause. Have a purposeful rest. Where at this time I am going to meditate for five minutes.

I'm going to journal for five minutes. I'm gonna read a chapter in a book. I'm going, going to. Set a timer for 10 minutes and I'm gonna sit and do nothing and just allow yourself to feel for a minute. And that's okay too. And it's actually good for doers because they, the doers are always doing and they're not feeling things and you need to feel it.

Then we have the feelers, the people that wanna feel everything instead of being active, uh, physically active, which is. I think [00:17:00] this one is me. I need to take my quiz, but I do think I'm a feeler. But the feeler connects with anxiety on a deeper emotional level, and they are often highly empathetic.

Empathy is one of my top five strengths. That's actually why I'm good at what I do, so that makes sense. And people who have empathy usually absorb the feelings of other people around them, so it can be very tiring and exhausting to be feeling everyone's feelings all the time. And so when, when we are anxious, a lot of times well, I'm calling myself a feeler for sure, and I'm pretty sure this is right.

But when a feeler feels anxious, they cry. They seek comfort from someone. Sometimes I tell my husband, can you just hold me? Can you just, you know, and that's all I want. I don't wanna, I don't wanna talk, I don't want them to talk, I just want him to hold me. Um, or just experience their feelings in lots of ways.

Openly. And their strength is that they do process their emotions [00:18:00] a lot of the time and like processing their emotions. But sometimes we can get stuck in our emotions and then we're not out doing things or, you know, trying to move forward. So a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found a strong correlation between high empathy and a predisposition to anxiety.

Now, I. I don't have diagnosable anxiety. Anxiety doesn't get in the way of my life, but I probably do experience a pretty high level of anxiety and it just feels normal to me because I do feel the feelings of all the people and so that probably always heightens my anxiety. And that's not a weakness to have these things.

Like we just have to make sure that we boundary set better. And I do have to work on that or try to not be a people pleaser so much because that's when we get like overwhelmed with all of that. So one of the things that can help a feeler is to name it to Tamers, [00:19:00] and we've talked about that in some other podcast episodes, but it's actually saying to ourselves, I feel anxious.

I feel sad. I feel frustrated.

I feel annoyed because, or you know, this situation like, like talking it out and naming it and labeling it because just saying it out loud and labeling it helps to lessen that. Uncomfortable feeling. And then expressive journaling. And I love journaling and I've done all sorts of different types of journaling and you can just find the one that works best for you, but just writing your feelings down with judgment.

That thought download, just writing everything your brain thinks right now and just writing it all down and then looking through it and you know, it kind of helps you to realize, oh, this is why I'm feeling this way. You know, I was thinking this. I. I also sometimes journal as if God is talking to me.

So how would God talk to me about this situation? And um, it's amazing like what [00:20:00] I write. 'cause later I read it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that to myself or that God said that to me. Um, and find your safe space. So, like I said, I sometimes just ask my husband to hold me. He's my safe space.

He's the person that makes me feel like I can feel all my emotions and it's all good. You need to have a person, whoever that is, a parent, a friend, a spouse, a a coach, somebody that can hear all of your things and allow you to feel and just be there and be safe. You can feel safe in your emotions. And then we have the dreamer.

And I think on this one too, a little bit, because futuristic is one of my top five strengths, and so I am always dreaming about the future and what's next or whatever. But people who are dreamers navigate anxiety by escaping into their imagination. So it might be daydreaming, but they might get lost in a good book.

They might get lost in a movie. They might, create things out of their [00:21:00] imagination through their anxiety. I remember, I haven't done this for a really long time 'cause I don't have such strong emotions like I did when I was a younger person, like as a teenager. But I remember I would just listen to really sad music and just, and that doesn't really have anything to do with anxiety, but I think anxiety brings out sadness in me.

And so I would just listen too. Really sad songs and I would cry it out and I would like just go to sleep listening to the sad music. And usually when I woke up then I was like, okay, I let it all out. You know, it's all, it's all gone. Sometimes I've listened to sad music in the shower and just cried in the shower.

And is, it's just a way for me to have relief from my anxiety or my uncomfortable feelings. Reach. Research shows that engaging in a beloved hobby or a creative pursuit can significantly reduce, reduce cortisol, the stress hormone levels and the practice of [00:22:00] constructive daydreaming where you let your mind wander and explore possibilities is linked to increased creativity and problem solving skills.

So I love that. So create with intention creation is a great way to process emotions and so. You know, writing a song about something you're anxious about or drawing a picture or. Writing or journaling or writing a poem or journaling about that thing, being intentional with your creation, creating a digital art board about your anxiety.

Could be. I, I didn't, I haven't done it digitally, but when I was, again, when I used to have bigger emotions when I was a younger person, I used to like to make collages, you know, like taking magazines and cutting out pictures and gluing them on. But you can do that digitally now. Um, a vision board for calm.

So make a vision board for things that are calming to you. Things that make you feel peaceful and safe and happy. You know, vacation pictures or family or pictures of your [00:23:00] pets or anything that takes your mind to a positive place is good for a daydreamer. And schedule a reality check. So people who have their head in the clouds all the time, and I am very much like that.

I need to be brought to reality. Sometimes I need to be like, okay, you dreamed about all this stuff, you did all these things. But like where the thinkers were scheduling a worry time, dreamers are going to schedule a reality time and you're just gonna dedicate 15 minutes. To like really looking at what you need to look at in your life.

You know, the things that aren't working, okay, what's not working, and what do I need to do? This isn't a shame time. This isn't a time to bully yourself or beat yourself up. It's just like, okay, this isn't working. What do I need to do? Or maybe the reality is you just need to pay a bill, or you need to contact three people to get a job, or you need to make a difficult.

[00:24:00] I know you don't make phone calls if you're a young person very much, but maybe as you know, a parent or educator, you need to make that difficult phone call or you need to send that difficult message to the person. Or you need to say no to something that you don't wanna say no to because you don't wanna hurt other people's feelings, but you don't wanna do it.

So so you schedule that reality check instead of that. So the reality time said the worry time. Remember, nobody is just one style. I'm sure you're a mix of all four. And like I said, after you take the quiz and you get your playlist for your particular style, if you're like, I wanna know what all of them are, just tell me.

Just email me and I'll send them all to you. The most important thing is just that you realize that there are unique ways that different people handle and manage anxiety, and that no one's way is right or wrong or good or bad. There's ways that you need to manage it, maneuver it things that you need to put in place to help you with that.

But there's nothing wrong with any of those things and [00:25:00] anxiety. It's just a normal emotion that every single person has. Now they, like I said, they may not be diagnosable, they may not take medication for it, but every single person has anxious thoughts. And they just have to figure out how to deal with them.

And today you learned four different styles of ways that people deal with it and, and different techniques that go with each one. And if you take the quiz, you'll get a playlist to kind of help you with other episodes I've done to help with those particular styles. And I just like, subscribe, share, I want.

Lots of people to know about this, and I want to grow my audience so that more and more people know about these anxiety managing techniques. So I'll talk to you soon.