Gym Anxiety How to Calm Your Nervous System Before You Walk Through the Door

You're sitting in the car park, you can see the gym doors from here and your body, your clever, well-meaning, completely overreacting body has decided that walking through them is the most dangerous thing you've been asked to do all week. Your heart is up, your stomach is tight, maybe you've already thought about just going home, you're not broken, you're not weak, you're having a completely normal stress response to something that doesn't actually require one. And in the next 10 minutes, we're going to fix that. Welcome to calming anxiety.

I'm Martin your host, a clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic. And before we go any further, I want you to know that I record this episode today because I felt exactly the same myself this morning. The resistance, the dread, the thousand small reasons to turn around. I didn't turn around and we're going to make sure that you don't either.

If you're new here, welcome. There are over 2,300 episodes, all free, all 10 minutes and if you're regular, thank you. Let's go. First, find your quiet place today, somewhere you won't be disturbed, somewhere company to sit or lie down.

And if it's safe, close your eyes. First, let's deal with what's happening to your body right now because if you're feeling that resistance, that heart in your throat feeling, I want to tell you exactly what's going on. Your body has registered this as a threat, the gym, the strangers, the mirroreds, the weights, the people looking at you who aren't, your nervous system has filed all of this under danger and fired up your core to skull response accordingly. Here's the thing.

As a paramedic, I detended real danger. What you're feeling right now is not it. This is anticipatory anxiety. It's your body doing something natural.

It's protecting you from something it is imagined and we can interrupt that signal right now together. I want you to feel your feet flat on the floor, whether you're in the car sitting outside already in the changing room. Breathe in slowly through your nose. Count with me.

In. Two. Three. Four.

Hold. Two. Out through the mouth, long and slow. Four.

Five. Six. That extended out breath. It's not just a nice idea.

It's that direct signal to your vagus now. It's saying, I'm safe now. You can switch off. Let's do that again with me.

Ready? Three. Four. Pause.

Two. Exhale. Two. Three.

Four. Five. Six. One more time.

Feel your shoulders drop down away this time. Ready? In. Two.

Three. Four. Hold. Two.

Release. Two. Three. Four.

Five. Four. Five. Six.

Good. Let your breathing now find its own natural rhythm. You've told your body there's no emergency here and your body is starting to believe. Now, with your eyes closed if it's safe to do so, I want you to use your imagination with me.

Picture yourself, not outside the gym, but already inside. You're in the changing rooms or you're back in the car park again, but now on the other side of it. The thing you were afraid of is behind you. Notice how that feels in your body.

The warmth in your chest, the quiet pride, not the loud kind, but the deep kind, the kind that only comes from doing one thing that felt hard. Your shoulders are a little tired, your heart rate is settling. This time from effort, though, not fear. These are completely different feelings and your body knows it.

Now, I want you to go back just slightly to that moment in the car park, but this time, but this time, you're watching yourself from the outside. You see yourself take one deep breath. You see yourself open the door. You walk in.

You don't need to be confident. You just need to walk in. Because here is what I know. Courage is not the absence of fear.

Courage is the decision that something matters more than the fear. And you showing up today, even in the car park, even with the resistance. That, my friend, is courage. That is already the hardest part.

Keep it into this feeling now, the safety of it, the simplicity of it. You only have to walk through one door, one single door. Everything else takes care of itself once you're on the other side. Be all the calm spreading from your chest outwards.

Down your arms, down into your stomach, the tightness easing. The story your anxiety was telling you, just a story. Not the truth, it's just noise. Stay here with this for a moment.

Breathe, rest. Let your nervous system receive this. And now, allow these words to form like the letters of light in your mind. Receive them.

Don't force them. Just allow them to settle. I am allowed to show up exactly as I am. I do not need to be perfect to deserve to be there.

My body is not my enemy, it is trying to protect me. I can thank it and gently lead it forward. The only person I am competing with is the version of me who stayed in the car.

I am stronger than the anxiety that is asking me to turn back.

I choose to walk through the door. The door is the whole victory.

Take one deeper breath now. Allow those words to settle further. Pass the thinking mind down into the part of you that knows your own strength.

And then breathe and relax. Love all that you are truly reuniting mind, body and soul is one. Because simply put my friend, you are truly worthy. Now before we come back, here are the three daily caring tips to live with you today.

One, the two-minute rule. Tell yourself you only have to stay for two minutes. Nobody who has ever gone for two minutes has left after two minutes. But giving yourself permission to leave removes the trap door that anxiety needs to keep you outside. Two, have a first task.

Before you go in, know the one thing you are going to do first. Not the whole session, just the first thing. One machine, one stretch, one lap. The plan kills the over one.

And three, earphones in before you walk through the door. Your music, your podcast, your session, earphones are a boundary. This is my space. I belong here. Nobody else's opinion lives inside these earphones.

Now, start to bring your awareness gently back now. Whittle your fingers and your toes. Take one last long deep breath in and let it all go on the out breath. When you open your eyes, you are ready. Not because the anxiety is gone, it might still be there at a low level.

But you now have the tools to walk alongside it rather than hide from it. The door is waiting for you. And the other side is the version of you that showed up. If you want to go further, do try my five session clinical hypnotherapy program at calminganxiety.fm.

It really is a bargain. It's only $67 and it's yours for life. Right. Have a lovely day. I'm Martin. This is calming anxiety. Whatever you do today, smile.

Think positively. You showed up. So in everything, my friend. Be kind.