Hey guys. Welcome to Not Another Anxiety Show. I'm your host, Kelly Walker, and today I'll be sharing an exercise recommended by psychologist Christopher Willard.

So this exercise is particularly helpful when you notice an urge to engage in an unhelpful habit.

Now, every human alive has an unhelpful habit or two.

And chances are, if we struggle with anxiety, we probably engage in some less than stellar

habits at times to try and quiet that anxiety. Maybe we eat too much. Maybe we drink too much. Maybe we

avoid situations we actually want to participate in. Or maybe we work too much or exercise too hard.

This exercise is particularly helpful if you're feeling short on willpower. Let's say you had a

really long anxiety-filled day. Resiliency is down. You're tired. You're hungry. And that carrot cake

cupcake is just screaming at you to consume it to feel just a little bit whole, a little bit

okay. Now, willpower has its place, and there are certain situations where we need to access it,

but willpower takes a ton of energy and it's finite.

So obviously it's not the most sustainable way to go about changing habits.

The next time you're feeling short on this willpower and notice an urge to engage in a less

than helpful, physical, or

mental habit like we're in, remember the acronym HALT. So that's the exercise here.

The idea of HALT is it's just a simple way to check in to see whether or not our basic needs

are being met. So here we go, halt.

The H.

Are you hungry?

Need I say more?

We all know how we get when we're hangary.

Andy once tried to tell me that hangary is not a legitimate emotion and no excuse to get testy.

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