Anxiety can be an all-consuming experience that takes over our thoughts. If you find yourself constantly ruminating on your anxiety and its symptoms, you are not alone. Fortunately, using some simple techniques can help you shift your focus away from anxiety and regain control over your thoughts.
Practice Mindfulness
Anxiety often comes from worrying about the future or dwelling on the past. Practicing mindfulness can help you stay in the present moment and reduce anxiety. To practice mindfulness, sit or lie down comfortably and focus your attention on your breath. As you breathe in and out, observe how your body feels and any thoughts that come into your mind. Don’t try to control or judge your thoughts; instead, simply notice them and let them go, returning your focus to your breath.
Exercise
Exercise is a great way to reduce anxiety and shift your focus away from negative thoughts. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins, which are natural chemicals that make you feel good. Even a short walk or yoga session can be enough to help you break the cycle of negative thoughts. Try to make exercise a regular part of your routine to reap the full benefits.
Engage in Activities You Enjoy
Engaging in activities you enjoy can be a great way to distract yourself from negative thoughts. Whether it’s painting, reading, or cooking, find an activity that you enjoy and make time for it regularly. Engaging in hobbies can help you relax and provide a sense of accomplishment, which can boost your mood.
Challenge Your Negative Thoughts
Anxiety often comes from negative thoughts that spiral out of control. To break that cycle, challenge your negative thoughts by asking yourself if they are grounded in reality. For example, if you’re worried about something specific, ask yourself if that worry is realistic or if it’s just an unfounded fear. Once you identify the basis of your worry, come up with a plan to address it. Taking action can help reduce anxiety and regain a sense of control.
Seek Professional Help
If you find that you’re struggling to manage your anxiety on your own, consider seeking professional help. Therapy and medication can both be effective treatments for anxiety. A mental health professional can also provide you with coping techniques you can use to stop thinking about your anxiety.
In conclusion, anxiety can be a debilitating experience, but it doesn’t have to control your thoughts. By practicing mindfulness, exercising, engaging in activities you enjoy, challenging negative thoughts, and seeking professional help, you can learn to shift your focus away from anxiety and regain control over your thoughts. Remember that managing anxiety is a process, and it takes time and effort to overcome. With persistence and determination, you can stop thinking about your anxiety and start living a more fulfilling life.
Stress and anxiety are common problems that many people face in today’s fast-paced world. While some stress can be helpful in motivating us to achieve our goals, chronic stress and anxiety can have negative effects on our mental and physical health. In this article, we’ll explore some expert advice on how to manage stress and anxiety, as recommended by UhealLife.
Identify the source of your stress and anxiety: It’s important to understand what triggers your stress and anxiety. Keep a journal to identify patterns, and make a list of situations that cause you to feel stressed or anxious. Once you’ve identified the source of your stress, you can start taking steps to manage it.
Practice relaxation techniques: There are several relaxation techniques that can help reduce stress and anxiety. Deep breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and progressive muscle relaxation are all effective techniques that can help you relax.
Stay active: Regular exercise can help reduce stress and anxiety. Exercise releases endorphins, which are natural mood-boosters. Find an activity that you enjoy, such as running, swimming, or dancing, and make it a regular part of your routine.
Get enough sleep: Lack of sleep can exacerbate stress and anxiety. Make sure you get enough sleep each night. Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep per night, and establish a bedtime routine to help you relax and prepare for sleep.
Practice self-care: Taking care of yourself is important for managing stress and anxiety. Make time for activities that you enjoy, such as reading, taking a bath, or spending time with friends and family. Take breaks throughout the day to relax and recharge.
Seek professional help: If your stress and anxiety are interfering with your daily life, consider seeking professional help. A therapist or counselor can provide guidance and support in managing your symptoms.
In conclusion, managing stress and anxiety is an important part of maintaining good mental and physical health. By identifying the source of your stress, practicing relaxation techniques, staying active, getting enough sleep, practicing self-care, and seeking professional help if needed, you can reduce your symptoms and improve your overall well-being.
When you’re calm, you can think your way through a problem instead of just worrying about it. Think about the worst thing that can happen, how likely that is and what you could do if it happens. In a stressful situation, think about the different ways you can respond and decide which one is the most intelligent.
Don’t make mountains out of molehills.
When you use the thinking brain, you get control of the emotional brain, and you feel better.
Also, replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Count your blessings and remind yourself of your successes.
The treatments for anxiety range from simple stress reduction methods to therapy and medication.
Don’t overlook stress management – it can help even with very bad anxiety.
Video – a lot of helpful information, including the 3-part program of Brown and Gerbarg –
Thought patterns are like habits, and like habits, they are tough to break, but it is possible to change them. It might be easier to add good thought patterns and that way increase the amount of time you think healthily/positively, to balance out the bad. Anxiety and bad thoughts are normal functions and can’t be completely stopped, but it can be reduced to a manageable and healthy level.
Anxiety – an Overview and Ways to Treat It
Introduction
Do you often feel anxious, or do you know someone else who is? Read on to find about more about what it is it, and learn a number strategies to help prevent it, or reduce the severity of the symptoms if you have it.
Anxiety is a common mental health problem, which is prevalent throughout the world and can be really serious in some cases. Studies show that more than 1 in 10 people will develop a disabling anxiety disorder at some stage in their life.
Anxiety is usually assessed on a degree of severity, ranging from mild, to moderate, to severe.
There are a number of different anxiety disorders, which include: generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, social anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and selective mutism.
Symptoms
The symptoms associated with anxiety are quite varied, and can range from quite mild or to quite severe.
1) Behavioural – social withdrawal, sleeping problems, loss of appetite, increased motor tension.
2) Emotional – feelings of dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, blank mind, nightmares, obsessions about sensations, sense of ‘deja vu’, feeling trapped in your mind.
3) Cognitive – thoughts about suspected dangers, such as fear of dying, believing that chest pains are heart attack, believing shooting pains in your head are a tumor or aneurysm, feeling an intense fear when you think of dying, or you may think of it more often than normal, or can’t get it out of your mind.
4) Physiological – headaches, vertigo, digestive problems, nausea, shortness of breath, palpitations, and fatigue.
Cause
The risk factors associated with anxiety include:
1) Neuroanatomical – Neural circuitry involving the amygdala (which regulates emotions like anxiety and fear, stimulating the HPA Axis and sympathetic nervous system) and hippocampus (which is implicated in emotional memory along with the amygdala) is thought to underlie anxiety. People who have anxiety tend to show high activity in response to emotional stimuli in the amygdala.
2) Genetics – Genetics and family history may put an individual at increased risk of an anxiety disorder, but generally external stimuli will trigger its onset or exacerbation.
3) Medical conditions – Many medical conditions can cause anxiety. This includes conditions that affect the ability to breathe, like COPD and asthma, and the difficulty in breathing that often occurs near death. Conditions that cause abdominal pain or chest pain can cause anxiety and may in some cases be a somatization of anxiety.
4) Substance-induced – Several drugs can cause or worsen anxiety, whether in intoxication, withdrawal or from chronic use. These include alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, sedatives (including prescription benzodiazepines), opioids (including prescription pain killers and illicit drugs like heroin), stimulants (such as caffeine, cocaine and amphetamines), hallucinogens, and inhalants.
5) Psychological – Poor coping skills (e.g., rigidity/inflexible problem solving, denial, avoidance, impulsivity, extreme self-expectation, negative thoughts, affective instability, and inability to focus on problems) are associated with anxiety. Anxiety is also linked and perpetuated by the person’s own pessimistic outcome expectancy and how they cope with feedback negativity. Temperament (e.g., neuroticism) and attitudes (e.g. pessimism) have been found to be risk factors for anxiety.
6) Social – Social risk factors for anxiety include a history of trauma (e.g., physical, sexual or emotional abuse or assault), early life experiences and parenting factors (e.g., rejection, lack of warmth, high hostility, harsh discipline, high parental negative affect, anxious childrearing, modelling of dysfunctional and drug-abusing behaviour, discouragement of emotions, poor socialization, poor attachment, and child abuse and neglect), cultural factors (e.g., stoic families/cultures, persecuted minorities including the disabled), and socioeconomics (e.g., uneducated, unemployed, impoverished although developed countries have higher rates of anxiety disorders than developing countries).
Tip 1: Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a psychological process, which involves bringing one’s attention to what you are experiencing in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation.
To perform mindfulness you must adopt a particular orientation toward one’s experiences in the present moment, which is characterized by a mixture of acceptance, curiosity, and openness.
Mindfulness practice has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression, stress, anxiety, and can is also used to treat drug addiction.
1) Awareness – Notice the thoughts which arise in your mind and the sensations that feel in your body. Do they feel hot or cold? Notice your heartbeat. Be aware of your breathing. Allow yourself to feel these sensations without resistance
2) Acceptance – Rather than accept or reject your thoughts, try to just observe them without judgment and allow them to flow in and out of your mind.
3) Present Moment – We often worry about the future or dwell on the past, but you should learn to focus on the present moment and bring your attention back to what is happening in the now.
Tip 2: Breathing
Square breathing is a simple technique which involves taking slow, deep breaths. It is good for stress reduction and can increase performance and concentration.
To start, visualize a square, then follow the instructions going clockwise:
1) Breathe in for 4 seconds picturing one side of the square.
2) Hold your breath for 4 seconds visualizing the second side of the square.
3) Breathe out over 4 seconds visualizing the third side of the square.
4) Hold your breath for 4 seconds visualizing the fourth side of the square.
This exercise should be completed as many times as required for the breathing to become calm and regular.
Tip 3: Other Ideas
1) Keep a journal – Write down your current thoughts, and brainstorm possible solutions to your problems.
2) Reading – Read one of your favourite books, or shop around for a new self-help book.
3) Write a poem – Turn your current worries and problems into a poem to give meaning to them.
4) Colouring – Get some coloured pencils, or crayons, and draw whatever comes to mind. Try some random patterns, or if you are feeling more adventurous create a stunning piece of art.
5) Music – Listen to your favorite band, or play your instrument if you have one.
6) Dance – Move your body to your favorite song, to help keep fit and distract yourself at the same time.
7) Walk – Take a walk outside and, and pay attention to your surroundings. Count houses, cars or trees as you pass them.
8) Relaxation – Take a warm, relaxing bubble bath or a warm shower, whichever you prefer.
9) List – Write a list of positive things in your life, such as good memories and your best attributes, and read them whenever you feel bad.
10) Triggers – Make a list of your triggers, and give it to your therapist if you have one.
