anxiety, communication, depression, meditation, mental health, millennials, mindfulness, positive thinking, recovery, teens, therapy, thoughts, women, young adults anxiety, communication, depression, meditation, mental health, millennials, mindfulness, positive thinking, recovery, teens, therapy, thoughts, women, young adults

Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Battling Anxiety

One of the most effective ways to reduce anxiety is to use your mind to catch & replace unhelpful thinking. The thoughts that accompany (and fuel) anxiety are distorted, but have juuust enough truth that they sound compelling. If you’ve ever experienced heightened anxiety, you know how quickly anxious thoughts can spiral. Here’s the trick...don’t believe everything you think.

Anxious thoughts are usually driven by a few unhelpful thinking styles. We all utilize these unhelpful thinking styles or cognitive distortions from time to time. Here are the five most common distorted thoughts that I see fuel anxiety:

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communication, conflict, depression, family, gratitude, marriage, meditation, mental health, millennials, mindfulness, parenting, partners of sex addicts, positive thinking, recovery, shame, teens, therapy, thoughts, trauma, women, young adults communication, conflict, depression, family, gratitude, marriage, meditation, mental health, millennials, mindfulness, parenting, partners of sex addicts, positive thinking, recovery, shame, teens, therapy, thoughts, trauma, women, young adults

3 Ways to Battle Shame

If we slow down to pay attention, we see the many small moments our shitty first drafts fight for our attention. It can be as simple and subtle as the moment your spouse looked away from you when you came out in your new sweater for the first time (SFD: He thinks it looks bad on me, I’m not good enough), or the look that stranger gave you walking Lake Merritt (SFD: She heard what I said and is judging me), or the drop of your stomach when a group of coworkers make lunch plans without you (SFD: They don’t like me, I’m a tag-a-long). Once those everyday shame moments are in our awareness, how do we battle it?

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addiction, communication, conflict, depression, goals, gratitude, kids, mental health, millennials, mindfulness, positive thinking, recovery, shame, therapy, thoughts, women, young adults addiction, communication, conflict, depression, goals, gratitude, kids, mental health, millennials, mindfulness, positive thinking, recovery, shame, therapy, thoughts, women, young adults

Externalizing the Problem

Beginning to externalize the problem is all about separating ourselves from the issue. Externalizing language asks questions of the problem like, in what context does that _____ usually occur? What types of things happen right before _____ takes over? What does _______ tell you to do? For example, rather than saying “I’m depressed,” you may say “Depression really got me today,” or “I really gave into Depression’s tricks last week.”

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depression, goals, gratitude, meditation, mental health, mindfulness, recovery, therapy, thoughts depression, goals, gratitude, meditation, mental health, mindfulness, recovery, therapy, thoughts

Tools for Emotional Regulation

One of our best weapons for emotional regulation is a tool we always have with us - our breath. There are a number of ways we can use breath to help us soothe when we feel activated. Breathing helps access our parasympathetic nervous system rather than continuing to live in our fight, flight or freeze sympathetic nervous system. Here are a few simple exercises for you to try when you feel emotionally overwhelmed.

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