Has stress become too much in your life? Here are 9 Ways to Calm Your Mind and Reduce Anxiety

 

9 Ways to Calm Your Mind and Reduce Anxiety

Anxiety and worry may rapidly overwhelm you, having a detrimental impact on a wide variety of areas of your life, manifesting itself outwardly in changes to your look and temperament, and wreaking havoc on your mental health. It may lead to excessive thinking, which will make you more nervous, which will lead to even more excessive thinking, which will lead to even more anxiety, and so on.

Hence, there is absolutely nothing healthy or beneficial about experiencing mental anguish. Now that it has been proven that mental turbulence is not in reality desired, you may be wondering, “Well, how do I avoid it, get rid of it, or merely regulate it?” This is an excellent question, and there are more than a few possible responses, so why don’t we have a look at some of the available options?

 

Mindfulness

Try to start practicing observing your thoughts, rather than merely reacting to them, and see your thoughts as clouds pass by. Which thoughts draw you in, and which thoughts make you want to run away as far and as fast as you can? Become aware of your thought processes, try to find a way you can untangle yourself, and merely observe your thoughts instead of blindly reacting to them. One great, modern way of going about this is with online meditation, so you are not forced to try and maybe fail, all by yourself. Instead, you can rely on some guidance and help to reach a satisfying peace and equilibrium. And is that not what we are all after right now?

Cognitive Distancing

The goal of cognitive distance is to help you see your frightened, illogical ideas as speculation rather than reality. Realize that your mind is attempting to keep you safe by making hypothetical predictions rather than actual ones. But just because something is possible doesn’t guarantee it really will. Consider the likelihood of the worst-case scenario you can’t stop thinking about happening in light of the available data. Maybe a nice thing will occur instead. According to your knowledge, experience, and the data at hand, which do you believe will really occur?

De-Fusion

Putting an end to your mental union with your ideas is the essence of cognitive de-fusion. Similar to practicing mindfulness, the key here is to see your internal monologue not as the absolute truth but as a stream of information. Keep in mind that our forebears survived thousands of years in the wild thanks to the heightened sensitivity of their brains to danger and threat. Keep in mind that your survival-focused brain may be the source of some of your worrying and panicked thoughts. Rather than passively accepting these ideas, you have the freedom to decide whether or not to believe them.

Direct Experience

It is important to keep in mind that the narratives that our brains create about ourselves, including those regarding our security and lovability, are not always correct. Sometimes we are prejudiced by unfavorable events from the past; so, you should ask yourself what your experience is right now, at this very moment. Is anything really taking place, or is it only a possibility that something may take place? Despite the fact that you may handle them in the same manner, they are not the same item.

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Instead of focusing on the specifics of the idea, try to train yourself to identify the sort of thought that is occupying your attention. Watch your thoughts and, for instance, classify them as “judging” each time you find yourself making a decision about how positive or negative an event or circumstance could be. If you become aware of a concern, such as the fear that you have of failing at something or suffering a loss, you should mentally categorize it as a worry. Using this technique will remove your focus from the substance of your thoughts and bring your attention to the processes that are taking place in your head.

Stay in the Here and Now

Keep in mind that dwelling on the past will only bring you misery in the here and now. The repetition of a negative event from the past does not guarantee that it will occur again today. Consider if there have been any changes in the environment, your capacity for dealing with it, or your level of understanding since you last tried this. When you’re an adult, you’re in a far better position to avoid, mitigate, or escape the negative effects of a scenario than you were when you were younger.

Broaden Your Horizon

Don’t limit yourself too strictly. You may be missing the forest for the trees by concentrating just on the trees. When we’re anxious or stressed, our thoughts narrow down on the “danger” at hand without taking the bigger picture into account. Maybe the issue isn’t as dire as your worry makes it seem. In order to gain perspective, you must step back and look at the whole picture instead of dwelling on one troubling aspect.

Get up, Get Going

Worrying about a problem without doing something to fix it won’t help you find a solution and may make you less willing to take action. When this happens, it’s important to break the cycle by switching gears and focusing on something else, such as organizing your wallet. When you return to the table, you may be able to see things in a new light that will lead you to a solution.

Is It Helpful?

You have to decide whether the thought you are having is actually helpful or not. And remember that just because a thought may be true, that does not mean it is helpful. If that is the case, push it to the back of your mind and think about possible solutions, thoughts that will somehow, in any way, move you forward instead of stagnating, or maybe even backward. Practice control over your thoughts, and you will notice just how much more successful you can be.

It can often seem like our minds are creatures of their own, separate from us. This is not true, so aim for control over your mind, opting for calm instead of panic, peace instead of anxiety, and stoicism instead of hyperactivity, and you will be surprised to learn how effective and productive you can actually be when you are not hindered, held back, and controlled by your own thoughts.