This blog will begin to feature tips on managing worry. Worry is a mental activity that we all probably do. One tip and way of looking at memory is that it masks scary stories that the mind is emitting. More specifically I believe that it is masking the emotions that come up. Let’s say your boss tells you that he or she is concerned about your work performance. You may immediately start to worry that you may lose your job. Then your thinking may go to your becoming homeless and that your support system may not be helpful to you. Holding the scary picture in front of you and the feelings of helplessness and fear and feeling them (letting them in or in ACT it is called Acceptance) will have a more helpful way for your mind then pushing these feelings away. It will not change the difficult situation you may be in but help to cope better with your thoughts and emotions that will show...
Learn MoreI am going to discuss some tips on managing anxiety. If your anxiety level is highland it is interfering with your life then it may be important for you to contact a mental health professional. I think it may be a good idea to get some names of therapist’s who use models of treatment that have been researched and shown to be effective for many people. If I wanted to see a therapist for this I would want to make sure they have good training in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral therapy) or ACT (Acceptance and Commitment therapy). There are professional organizations that have a referral list and that includes the ABCS as well as the ABCT. When you are considering treatment for anxiety it is important to learn to develop a mind set such that your goal of treatment is not to get rid of anxiety but to manage it in a more helpful way. As humans we tend to struggle with anything that may make us pretty uncomfortable and that struggle helps us to keep our mind more on the thing we are trying to get rid of and this may get us down and can make us feel even more...
Learn MoreOne thought about dealing with social anxiety is to go into the social situation that makes you anxious and act the way you truly want to act. Difficult? Yes if your anxiety level is rather high. Try to increase your willingness to have that high anxiety and still be the person you really want to be. See an attractive person you would like to start a conversation with-let yourself be very anxious and start talking to that person. Don’t know what to say and or having brain freeze because you are so anxious, start asking them questions about...
Learn MoreHelp for anxiety and depression: Changing our thoughts should probably read: Changing our relationship to our thoughts. I have plenty of experience using CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), a form of CBT, to see how they are very similar and yet different in their approaches to thoughts. Using CBT we try to find a more logical thought to counter a distorted or unhelpful thought. If you have the thought you are a loser we may ask you to look at the evidence that that thought is true and the evidence against it and ask what conclusion you can make (e.g. I have strength and weaknesses). So every time you have the thought you could remind yourself of that conclusion or again use the evidence technique to help you change your relationship to that thought. Using ACT with the same thought we might ask you a question like how often in your life have you had that thought…has it been helpful to pay attention to that thought? Likely you would be able to then distant yourself from that thought so that you are no longer buying into it. I do think that paying attention to many of our thoughts in these manners may help reduce...
Learn MoreI am offering some ideas about dealing with depression. If you are depressed it is very important that you seriously consider getting treatment. If you are planning on suicide than calling your emergency number, likely 911 in the USA, and or go to the nearest emergency room if you are a risk to hurting yourself or others. In addition to what is stated above here are some ideas to consider: 1. Often in depressions there is a tendency to withdraw and do as little as possible. I suspect this is something hardwired into our brain and just like many things related to our psychology are hire wired does not mean it is helpful at all for us. It seems that this tendency to do as little as possible may keep us depressed longer. So to counter this we need to ACT on what we would be doing if we were not depressed by using Acceptance from Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT) which is a form of Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT). Here we allow in the urges to do nothing and still take actions to keep ourselves actively engaged in life. This could be in the form of calling friends that normally you would want to call and or calling...
Learn MoreDealing with Anxiety takes some different coping styles to help you through. One of these is the act of learning how to reduce or stop your struggle with anxiety. We do not like to feel uncomfortable and I would say that humankind is allergic to it. Its like a fire and if we see an unplanned fire we want to out it out right away. So we reach for water but what if this type of fire requires something else to put it out? Instead of reaching for water we would reach for something else. In Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT) we say what you reach for are the tools for acceptance. These tools are not tools to make your fire go away (anxiety) but rather to stop struggling with it and allow the uncomfortable feeling and physical sensations that come along with it to stay where they are. If you do that you stop the inner conflict. This could allow you to make room for this as well as to move past...
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