We are not talking about the the whole “think globally, act locally” movement here. This is about the utter confusion and inability to sort out your thoughts when anxiety strikes. People who are prone to panic or anxiety attacks often tend to think globally. They have a hard time sifting through information and deciding what is relevant when they are in pain. It is as if they are being bombarded by conflicting emotions, most often led by fear of the future and what it holds for them.
Gift baskets tend to have a few items that you like and will use, but many get tossed or just sit on a shelf for months because they’re “too good to throw away.” Hanging on to that stuff you don’t need can fill up your, ahem, re-gifting closet, way too fast. Stick with me because both this post and therapy are not a straight line.
Don’t you hate it when someone tells you to “Just relax!”? For me it is the same fleeting annoyance as when someone orders me to smile.
When I encourage plagiarism, what I mean is that it is perfectly acceptable to take ideas from what others share about their mental health and safely try them out if you feel they will help you. Otherwise, why blog?
First off, stopping the panic and anxiety that results from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is no easy task, and all of the self-help books, gurus, and mental health experts out there worth a darn will acknowledge this fact. And there is no one right way to accomplish this, but there are some generally tried and true methods to self-calm in the moment.
First I would ask “Which other people?” Are they strangers, acquaintances, work colleagues, friends, close friends, or family?
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is being hypersensitive to either real or imagined criticism. What underlies this feeling is an exquisite sensitivity to the feeling of embarrassment.
What is more exhausting than feeling your emotions? Anxiety, anxious feelings, and dread are all triggered through the brain’s response to sensations, thoughts, and memories, or some combination thereof. You hear the pot crashing in the kitchen and snap to until your cortex decides about a half a second later that it was just that and not a gunshot or someone being seriously wounded.
Did you know that if you have anxiety in almost any form, list making is your friend?
Anxiety in its purist form is about loss of control. It is that feeling that you cannot control the outcome you so desperately wish to do. And what better way to harness a little of the feeling of being in control than making a to-do list?
Sometimes I am so tired of the self-help industry and the imposed expectations it places on us. While reading an interesting article about the differences in shamanic treatments for mental illness that are radically different from the Westernized way, my senses were heightened about the level of expectations in this culture. It is exhausting.