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nomoreanxiety
01-24-2012, 02:09 PM
MY ANXIETY
A brief story of my anxiety and how it affected me.
Remember this is over a period of at least six years made very short because it doesn’t really matter.

I did not know how my anxiety started or why, but it was making my life hell on earth and getting worse! I was worrying about everything. I thought I was going insane, my heart was racing much of the time and the palms of my hands were always sweating. I was short tempered and could not concentrate on anything, my thoughts were racing but the thoughts I was thinking or should I say trying not to think about were abnormal to say the least. I was trying so hard not to think all this stuff, I was having panic attacks on a regular basis and was paranoid that people knew or would find out that I was mental. I was convinced I had a severe mental health problem or a brain disease or tumor.
I started trawling the internet for answers and self diagnosed myself at least fifteen times with all sorts of disorders. Finally I got the confidence to go to the doctor who told me he was pretty sure it was anxiety and put me on anti-depressants and sent me to a councilor, all to no avail, all a load of crap.

How i beat anxiety in one month.

First things first, check your breathing it is very important that you breath from your diaphragm/belly and not your chest because when you are standing upright the blood stays mostly at the bottom of your lungs and if you just breath with your chest the oxygen does not get all the way down to oxygenate your blood, which causes problems.

Second and very important, take the importance or significance out of your thoughts. I came to understand that thoughts can be very dangerous if you do not know how insignificant they really are! About 90% of our thoughts are just repetitive bullshit. If you give them too much importance and you are not thinking helpful thoughts that serve you, then they can overrun your head and make you feel miserable. They can even give you panic attacks and depression. The worst thing you can do is try to stop thinking the thoughts you don’t want to think, you will be fighting a loosing battle, just let the thoughts be, give them no attention, no importance (its just a thought). Unless its a thought that serves you then you can follow the trail.. but if not just say bullshit into yourself and carry on regardless.
In time all the bullshit will disappear and the ones you follow will expand.

Third and final! the only way to stop thinking is to use your awareness, some people call this meditation but it can be done anywhere at anytime.. sitting or standing or lying down or upside down. Just listen.. look.. feel.. smell, basically use your senses without judging or getting involved in a thought process about what you are doing.

It was that simple!

IndependentJenn
01-24-2012, 04:19 PM
Sounds like some of the things I am doing to stop my anxiety. Can't say it works everytime for me but I think it will just take time to break the old thinking habits and replace them with new healthy ones:)

nomoreanxiety
01-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Anxiety is an emotional state, but the emotion is created by the way you think... just remember you are not your thoughts, you are the silent observer of your thought and you choose which ones you pay attention to. But remember not to push the bad thoughts away, trying to do anything with them only expands them, you cannot unthink a bad thought! just give them permission to be there but do not follow them. Observe and relax they cannot harm you in any way.

nomoreanxiety
01-24-2012, 05:19 PM
I would like to suggest audio books, when I was in full anxiety mode I could not read because I could not pay attention to the page I was reading so I started listening to audio books... The author Eckhart Tolle helped me a lot.

AsktheAges
01-24-2012, 08:05 PM
Wow, a month. Let me see if I can do that.

AsktheAges
01-24-2012, 08:10 PM
Wow, a month. Let me see if I can do that. The thing is that it's hard for me to maintain the mental energy to remain that mentally disciplined all the time. When I was with my long-distance ex, I managed it throughout one entire visit. It was great and she really appreciated it. But on the drive home, I had to give in again. Still, I could probably strengthen my ability with more practice.

jon mike
01-26-2012, 01:21 AM
Well done man, I also controlled my anxiety problems (of 15 years :-( ) with this, this method is basically CBT if anyone is wondering what that is, I know it sounds too simpler of a method to combat anxiety problems but it really is key.