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Sueperu
8,080 M Moving Along 8
PathStep 5 Compassion hearts274 Forum posts23 Forum upvotes33 Current upvotes33 Age GroupAdult Last activeAugust, 2024 Member sinceAugust 4, 2021
Recent forum posts
Anti Anxiety Toolbox
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 25th
...See more There is no such thing as a relapse with anxiety. We often expect that once we start implementing the anxiety tools and starting to feel better, that we are supposed to only get better and better. We have to remember that just because we are beginning to fight against anxiety, it does not mean that all our human emotions will cease to exist. We are still human and have to experience our emotional spectrums. So we will still have moments where we feel negative and not so great. We do not have to see these moments as a relapse but a normal experience in life. We often get into the expectation that once we start to get control of our anxiety that we must never feel anxious again or have a bad day. This perception leads to us falling hard when we have setbacks even minor ones. It also leads to us catastrophising the setback and into our vicious cycles again. We then feel as if we've gone back to the start. Once we start to gain control of our anxiety, there are no relapses. Because now we have gained all our tools that have led us out of the anxiety. So when we have anxious moments or bad days, we can just take this lightly, knowing it will be short-lived and apply our many tools. We got this guys. We are not relapsing but are better equipped to handle the setbacks.
Anti Anxiety Toolbox
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 11th
...See more A wonderful self care practice I like to treat myself to is the Just For Today practice. Carve out a little chunk of time to put anxiety, worrying and negative emotions aside and just allow yourself lovely feelings and moments. So Just For Today I'm going to allow myself to not worry about these things. They'll still be there tomorrow. For today, I'm just going to treat myself to a break to relax and unwind and do some things I love. Treat myself to some pampering, to some laziness, to some fun, to some blissfullness. Whatever that may look like for me. If you can't do a day. You can use Just For The Next 5 Minutes....I'm going to take a break from worrying and feeling low and perk myself up... With a cup of tea, a magazine, a funny video... What do you like doing? You can do 10 minutes, half an hour, 1 hour, 2 or 3 or 4 hours. Treat yourself today
Anti Anxiety Toolbox
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 8th
...See more Hellooooz my fellow anxiety champions So has anyone been practising with ignoring their anxious thoughts and symptoms? Let's share. Let's celebrate our firsts, our wins. The first day we felt our chests ease a little. The first day we felt that flicker of brightness inside. The first day we woke up with our hearts not pounding so much. The first day we were able to get back into our normal routines a little. Aaah the relief. The joy. To our firsts and a future of lightness and brightness.
Anti Anxiety Toolbox
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 7th
...See more Anti Anxiety Toolbox - The Art of Ignoring Don't try to calm your anxiety, get on with your day instead Part of ignoring anxious thoughts and symptoms is not interacting with them. We tend to spend a significant amount of time trying to reason out our anxious thoughts and often try to fight back at them. We sit trying to appease our anxious minds and calm our anxiety. All this does is continue the red flag brain cycle. What you're doing is signalling to the brain that this is still something that is significant to you. What you need to do to break this cycle is just leave it be and continue with your day. Go on with whatever you were doing before the anxiety struck. Do something different. Do something interesting or fun. Its kinda like not worrying about the anxious thoughts and symptoms. As if they're just some pesky mosquito. Shoo it away, move to a different area. Not so bothered by them. This breaks the cycle in the brain that red flags certain thoughts and sensations, which trigger the fight-or-flight response. So don't try to calm your anxiety. Don't try to reason out the thoughts in your head. Don't try to argue with them. Just ignore them and get on with your day. (Remember in the beginning you will have to do this with the symptoms and probably a very loud mind. But as you go about your day, these will quieten). Have fun with choosing different things to do that are more fun than sitting butting heads with your anxiety. Perhaps when you have a moment, make a list of things you would rather be doing. Then when anxiety hits, do those things on your list. I like taking a walk outside, watching the blue in the sky, the birds, the trees or maybe curling up with a good book. Let those feelings of excitement and relaxation flow through you. Why this works: Remember that when you feel anxious, don't interact with the anxiety, instead cast it aside and do something else. What this does is: 1. Signals to the brain that this thought or symptoms is no longer something that bothers you so it is now insignificant. The brain will then begin to stop the red flagging. 2. Shifts your attention so you're not focusing on the anxiety. Again this helps to stop the red flagging. In the beginning this is difficult because you will feel torn. But as always stick with the ignoring, stick with the not interacting. And you will soon find the symptoms becoming milder, your mind quietening. Plus you get a lot more done that you wanted to do for the day and you begin to include more things that are pleasant into your day. We got this guys. To pleasant and bright days
Anti Anxiety Toolbox
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 1st
...See more Anti Anxiety Toolbox Supporting Information to Maintain The Art of Ignoring   Healing and wellness is accomplished with a holistic approach. It is not one size fixes all kind of thing. Using the anxiety tools in combinations works wonders to provide holistic and sustainable healing.   So here are some supporting tips to help you maintain ignoring those pesky anxious thoughts and symptoms:   1.       Be mindful that when you first start practising ignoring, it doesn’t mean the anxious thoughts and symptoms will be gone. So you will be ignoring while the symptoms are still there. But keep ignoring despite your pounding heart, your twisting tummy or whatever your anxiety symptoms are.   Remember that is what ignoring is all about. Going about your day with those symptoms. (In the beginning. Always remember that they are going to fade as you keep ignoring).     2.       Something that helps with ignoring anxiety is this: We often think of anxiety as paralysing. As if we can’t move. We just want to lie there motionless. But we CAN move. Anxiety does not paralyse us. Try this the next time your in the throes of anxiety: Firstly ignore the symptoms. Yes they’re there but you’re choosing to ignore them. Then remind yourself that you can move, you can continue with whatever you were doing before anxiety struck. So try moving a toe. We can move a toe. Try moving your foot. We can move our foot. Try standing up. Try waving your hands about   If you were at your computer, try typing a letter. We can type a letter. We can type a word. One word. We can do that while we are feeling anxious. We’ll find we can even type a full sentence. While we felt I am so anxious I can’t type this document or this email, we can at least type a line. And once you start, you’ll find that you can type way more than just one line. Perhaps a page.   We can continue our day with anxiety. (And remember as we go along, the anxiety is going to fade away).   The ignoring and getting on with our tasks has a three-fold benefit: 1.       It shows us that we are NOT paralysed by anxiety. We can, in fact, do what we want to do 2.       It signals to our brain that we are fine to continue with our day. Which breaks the neurological anxiety loop and helps fade the fight-or-flight mechanism. 3.       It empowers us. By moving a toe or a limb or typing a line or continuing a task, it proves to us that we CAN continue our day and be productive despite anxiety. And we start to break the hold anxiety has over us.   Watch for: Further tools to kick anxiety to the curb and live our best lives   We got this guys. To a free, light and bright future.
Anti Anxiety Toolbox: Supporting Information for The Art of Ignoring
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 3rd
...See more Anti Anxiety Toolbox Supporting Information to Help Sustain Ignoring   I find that using the anti anxiety tools in various combinations works wonderfully to build a sustainable anxiety control system.   Here are some things to support your ignoring the anxious thoughts and symptoms:   Because anxiety is a brain issue, we experience some lags in the tools taking effect, which is why it is so important to continue using the tools for longer periods and practice them regularly.   This is because our responses build neural pathways that form our habits. The longer we’ve been responding in a certain way the stronger those neural pathways have become. They say it takes about 30 days to break a habit and somewhat longer to replace old habits with new ones. This is because we have to deactivate those neural pathways and then practice the new habit long enough for a new neural pathway to be formed and strengthened.   A nice way to visualise it is a light up tube. So think of the light beam slowly lighting up from one end of the tube to the other. It lights a little and then goes back. Then lights up a little further and then goes back. It keeps doing this until it eventually touches the other end and becomes a stable light beam. That’s how the synapses between our neurons work. And that’s how habits are formed and broken.   So stick with the tools and keep practising them until you light up your beam.   A recap of The Art of Ignoring tool We tend to respond with panic and concern when our brain checks whether our triggers are still a threat. Our panicked response signals to the brain to keep red flagging the trigger. We need to break the cycle by responding that the trigger is no longer a threat. Ignoring the anxious thoughts and symptoms is a great tool to help break the brain’s red flagging cycle.   Keep ignoring the thoughts and symptoms and the brain will start to fade the threat signal. Watch for: More supporting info to make ignoring easier and help you maintain it
Anti Anxiety Toolbox
Anxiety Support / by Sueperu
Last post
 August 7th
...See more Anti Anxiety Toolbox The Art of Ignoring   A key tool, I have found, in gaining sustainable control over anxiety is learning the skill of ignoring it.   Now I don’t mean ignoring as in ignoring your problem or pretending it does not exist. I mean ignoring the nagging voice that anxiety introduces into our heads.   Why this works: A significant part of anxiety is a brain thing, which I will discuss in further detail in a subsequent post. We’re all familiar with the fight-or-flight brain mechanism. We’ve probably heard a million times how this mechanism is activated with anxiety disorders and then never released. Similarly there are other brain centres that regulate the various functions of the brain, including sorting through information and labelling them accordingly.   One centre in the brain (I don’t want to get too much into the neurological jargon for now as it can get a little confusing when all we want to know is the what, why and how of kicking our anxiety’s butt – and mostly the how) is responsible for directing our attention. Another brain centre is responsible for red flagging the things we deem threats.   When we become anxious about something, we are sending a signal to our brain that this is a threat to me. And the brain red flags it. Every time you are confronted with that threat, the brain red flags it to caution you.   What is really happening is the brain is checking whether this is still a threat to you. Once you respond anxiously, the brain maintains the alarm, signalling the amygdala to set off the fight-or-flight response.   This is an important aspect in anxiety control. When that check happens, we anxiety sufferers keep signalling that it is a threat by responding anxiously. The brain maintains the alarm and the fight-or-flight remains activated. The symptoms, such as the pounding heart, the burst of adrenaline etc. keep us anxious and there starts the vicious cycle.   The How: To end this cycle, we need to signal to the brain that the trigger is not a threat.   This may seem a moot point to us in the throes of anxiety especially because we aren’t usually faced with a physical threat but mental thoughts that never seem to go away. So how can we signal that the threat has passed when it is very much still in our minds.   That is where The Art of Ignoring comes in.   Even though our minds are screaming loudly and our thoughts make an awful lot of noise, we can ignore them.   This may seem near impossible in the beginning because its so loud in our heads.   But think of a nagging co-worker, an over-eager neighbour, a rowdy kid when you’re trying to get work done. In the beginning you are affected by them but as the days and weeks pass, you start to ignore them and focus on your tasks and soon they fade into background noise.   Do the same with your anxiety. Ignore the thoughts in your head and the symptoms.   A Few Ignoring Hacks: 1.       When my anxious thoughts are screaming loudly in the morning, I like to take a nice deep breath, roll over lazily and say to my anxiety, ‘Oh not now, I’m having my beauty sleep.’ 2.       When anxiety thoughts and symptoms interrupt me during the day, I like to turn the other cheek, smile to myself, shimmy my shoulders, hum a little melody and say, ‘Oh not now anxiety, I’m busy.’   Now this is incredibly difficult in the beginning but as you keep practicing ignoring your anxiety, your brain begins to deactivate the red flag and the anxiety begins to dissipate. You will find your anxious thoughts fade to the background and the symptoms become milder. Eventually you will go an hour without even having those anxious thoughts and symptoms, then a few hours, then a day, then a few days until you no longer think of it at all and it becomes a thing of the past. Of course there will be other triggers but getting the hang of ignoring them, will stop your brain red flagging most of them and you will feel like yourself again.   We know with anxiety tools, we have to stick with them. So stick with this for a while and watch how resilient and even defiant you become in the face of anxiety.   Watch for subsequent posts where I will discuss the supporting tools for enhancing your ignoring skill and more anti-anxiety tools.   We got this guys. Here’s to a light and blissful future. @asilentobserver
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