/improve/ - Self Improvement

>>5164

I really don't know what to do either, but wait for it to pass. Sorry I can't contribute to your thread, but I'm posting here to show some sympathy for whatever it's worth.

>>5164

From mine and many others experience, all of that can be solved, or at the very least greatly reduced with consistent mediation and relaxation practice. All you need is a minimum of 3 minutes out of your day, and for as many days a week as you're comfortable with doing, but keep in mind that it is impossible to do too much.

Take the time to sit down or lie down, whichever you're more comfortable with, let your eyes gently close themselves, and begin focusing on your breathing. Breath in and out through your nose, making sure it goes deep into your lungs; your gut should rise and fall with each breath, not your chest. Your mind will undoubtedly wander, which is completely normal, but all you have to do is acknowledge those thoughts, then go back to focusing on your breathing.

If you need help with getting started, try one of the short meditations on http://app.stopbreathethink.org/ , or follow a guided meditation video on youtube, they will walk you through the steps in more detail than I have explained here.

I've found a lot of help reducing my overall anxiety levels and also getting to sleep using these methods. From the way you've described your situation and how much it relates to my former situation, I think it will work for you too, if you just give it a fair shot.

>>5170

I really recommend against waiting for it to pass, as things like this don't solve themselves. You have to take some initiative and be proactive in order to overcome it, otherwise it will just get worse and worse until it completely takes over your life. That's not to say it's impossible to fix things once you get to that point, but it will take more work.

Think of those worries as weeds in a beautiful garden. If they are left unattended, they will grow and grow until they smother everything in sight, and it's going to be one hell of a job to get rid of it all. However, if you act sooner and more often, de-weeding will always be a relatively minor task, and perhaps even a little relaxing too.

>>5164

I have been very anxious myself these past few months OP.

I realized there is no way to get rid of anxiety except to solve the things you are worrying about and yes I know it's hard. If you can't solve them then you must at least have a solid plan to solve them and you must actually believe that the plan will work, if your mind feels it doesn't work then you will go back to anxiety and depression.

>>5171

Sorry fam, meditation never worked for me personally and I find it impossible to meditate with crippling anxiety.

>>5190

[I'm not the guy you wrote back to]

"Sorry fam, meditation never worked for me personally and I find it impossible to meditate with crippling anxiety."

Not to discount your experiences mate, but I highly doubt you are so different that something so universal doesn't apply to you, if anything you are doing something wrong or expecting immediate change. Meditation isn't some placebo bullshit, there are physical changes in your brain from it. It's also something that has been tested hundreds of times, time and time again it's been studied with positive results and conclusions. There's no such thing as a none meditation person, sure, there are people that find it very difficult to focus on nothing, but even those people gain a benefit from it.

You don't have to sit in some lotus position to achieve mindfulness. Just sit in a chair and listen to the link the Anon above posted. It's that easy, then just follow it. Short term change should be that you are slightly more calm and relaxed, long term change is that anxiety in general is changed [ because of the changes to brain ].

Battling crippling anxiety or anything in general starts with the small steps, then from those small steps you gradually progress until you can wreck the bigger challenges.

Stuff like exercising, meditation and eating right are the small steps Anon. Nobody is expecting you to stand on a stage in front of 1000 of people and give a speech to beat this bitch, but something like the above 3, those are things that you can do at this very moment, and they are things that are very effective against it. Then from those steps you move onto more harder stuff. Like with the exercising example, initially you may train in your room and go for walks and then later you join a gym full of people. Small steps and gradual progression.

If you can't do something, practice it and refine technique until you can, not just give up and disregard it completely, especially if it's something as beneficial as mediation.

>>5171

Some sources say that the way you breathe doesn't matter, as long as you pay attention to the experience of breathing.

OP here.

Thank you everyone for the support and the advises (and sorry for answering after weeks). I will surely try slowing down with meditation. I tried it before and it did help, but for some reason I stopped and things went downhill after a while. Will give it a shot again.

>>5192

Thank you, I will certainly read this book. As for my situation until now, it got better for a couple of weeks, and now it goes downhill again. I hope these advises and the book will help others too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxEvRoAaYBM

this helped me alot. Best wishes to all anons

Absolutely, unequivocally meditation. I've had pretty bad anxiety since childhood, and the ability to pull yourself out of your thoughts/emotions and watch them objectively can be very empowering. I think the best times to try meditating are when you're entrenched in any negative emotion, or if that's too difficult, when you're alone after a long day with all the tension you have built up from it. Sit for a while and just start taking note of the places in your body that are holding tension. For me it's mostly in the jaw, shoulders, back, and chest. Sometimes you can't even tell you're tense until you really get into a relaxed state. Then just simply focus as much as you can on those areas and gently imagine the tension being massaged away. Sometimes I also like to match it with my breathing, imagining that with each inhalation a warm energy is gathering in those spots and "breaking up" the tension, and with each exhalation the tension is dissolving away. You really don't need to get too fancy with it or get caught up on an exact method, the key is to mostly see how your feelings have manifested in your body, and then allow them to be undone, with the motivation to embrace the changes that come with it.

A useful practice is imagining certain scenarios that bring up specific negative reactions in you. Like an irrational fear, source of shame/guilt, or some kind of sexual/masculinity dysfunction. Imagine the scenario and when you feel that negative feeling, identify where it manifests in your body, focus on it, and gradually ease it away. Always assure yourself that no matter how strong a thought pattern may be, it is never necessarily true. Anxiety feels very compelling because it taps into your fight-or-flight instincts and for a moment (or many moments) you're absolutely convinced that you're somehow in danger, but gradually you can observe the irrationality of it, and it will wither away. A lot of the times it's difficult to let go of negative feelings because you fear what life is like without them - like you need to be anxious, depressed, distrustful, angry, etc. to defend yourself from certain aspects of reality, and it's your duty to explore WHY you've acquired that defense mechanism. Often it's from childhood traumas.

I'm pretty certain this is based in a shamanic technique called de-armoring. You might look more into that, if you can bear the New Age verbiage.

>>5192

I started reading this book and I'm more than half way through. It's pretty good and comfy to read. It's actually relaxing, as the book talks about tranquility a lot and how to achieve this, letting go of the Past, being grateful etc.

On a side not, the author sometimes uses pronouns in a weird way. Not like SJWs, but he often switches he for she. When there's a word for someone (female or male), if you want to replace it with a pronoun, it will be by default the pronoun "he" right? Well, the author uses "she". Not really relevant, though.