Kabukicho
03-05-2014, 01:57 PM
This is a technique that I found fairly helpful.
Have you ever heard of the "white bear" paradox? Basically, if someone says to you "DON'T think about a white bear," then it's an absolute guarantee that you'll think about it. Your mind says "What was it I wasn't supposed to do?" and BAM you're thinking about the white bear.
It's the exact same with anxiety sometimes. I find myself in an anxiety-producing situation and I immediately start "checking" myself for symptoms. Am I feeling lightheaded? Is my heart racing too fast? Do I feel sick? I tell myself that I MUST NOT feel anxious because, if I do, I will surely collapse and die. And as soon as I start policing myself like that, the anxiety gets 100 times worse.
So I've tried very hard to just stop being the "anxiety police," as I like to phrase it. Anxiety is present. It comes and goes. I have very little control over it at the end of the day. But it won't kill me and it won't hurt me and I can function perfectly fine when I'm anxious. So I just let it do its thing.
This kind of thinking has helped reduce my daytime anxiety by about 30%, I would say.
Have you ever heard of the "white bear" paradox? Basically, if someone says to you "DON'T think about a white bear," then it's an absolute guarantee that you'll think about it. Your mind says "What was it I wasn't supposed to do?" and BAM you're thinking about the white bear.
It's the exact same with anxiety sometimes. I find myself in an anxiety-producing situation and I immediately start "checking" myself for symptoms. Am I feeling lightheaded? Is my heart racing too fast? Do I feel sick? I tell myself that I MUST NOT feel anxious because, if I do, I will surely collapse and die. And as soon as I start policing myself like that, the anxiety gets 100 times worse.
So I've tried very hard to just stop being the "anxiety police," as I like to phrase it. Anxiety is present. It comes and goes. I have very little control over it at the end of the day. But it won't kill me and it won't hurt me and I can function perfectly fine when I'm anxious. So I just let it do its thing.
This kind of thinking has helped reduce my daytime anxiety by about 30%, I would say.