Control Your Thoughts to Control Your Anxiety

As we go about our daily activities, our minds are constantly busy thinking about everything from what we’ll have for lunch to how we feel about ourselves and others.

Self-talk can be a powerful thing. When it is negative, however, they can be devastating. Those negative thoughts influence how confident we are and how successful we become. Positive thoughts, on the other hand, give us strength and an inner power that enables us to overcome even the most devastating experience.

Negative thinking can be directly connected to anxiety, because our thoughts don’t provide the power we need to feel good about ourselves, our decisions and our actions.

One of my favorite authors gives this advice:

“Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. But with sound self-confidence you can succeed. A sense of inferiority and inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful achievement.” (The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale)

His books helped me overcome my lack of confidence and resulting anxiety and panic attacks. He stresses the importance of having faith in yourself so you can “avoid the jitters in your daily work.” This faith will make a huge difference in your life, as it has mine.

I highly recommend my readers get a copy of his book for yourself. Mine has been read numerous times. Pages have been dog-eared, significant text passages have been underlined in pen, and other sections have been highlighted – something I never do to my books, but in this instance it seemed the right thing to do. First published in 1952, it’s message remains valid today, perhaps more than ever. My copy, which I acquired back in the ‘70s is yellowed with age, but still a vital addition to my bookshelf.

His advice helped me at a time when I suffered severe lack of confidence. Back then, my mind was filled with self-doubt and negative self-talk. At every opportunity, I told myself that I was “just kidding myself” and that “I can’t do that” and “I’m ugly – no one will want me” and “I’m too stupid to succeed”. Over half my lifetime, my mind fed me these deceptive thoughts and crushed any flickering positive ones.

It’s extremely important to catch your thoughts – to listen to how you talk to yourself and make a determined effort to stop the negatives and feed the positives.

This will be hard to do at first because you’ve probably become so accustomed to those thoughts that you don’t hear them. Most likely it will take some time before you learn how to listen to yourself, but once you do you might well discover that you are constantly putting yourself down, belittling your capabilities and your strengths.

Some people don’t understand what positive thinking really is. They think it’s about always looking at the good things, of always thinking happy thoughts that put a persistent smile on your face, but that’s not true. Positive thinking is about looking at the positives while downplaying the negatives.

When you are faced with an obstacle, do your thoughts immediately tell you “I don’t know how to do that” or “I don’t have the skills to do that”? My favorite was, “What the heck do I know? I’ve never done anything like that before.”

Clearly, this immediately tells you indirectly that you don’t have the brain power to learn because you haven’t so far. It is a self-defeatist approach.

Have you ever heard stories of people showing incredible strength in emergencies, yet in normal circumstances, they would be much weaker? That’s because at the time of the emergency, they are driven by adrenalin and are thinking of nothing else but how to help resolve the emergency, especially if it involves saving another life.

Had these people decided they weren’t strong enough because they’ve never done this before, they might not have even tried.

Never underestimate your own power and strength, whether it’s inner strength or physical strength. In times of need, the body is designed to respond accordingly. The same thing goes for your mind. It is built to deal with problems as they arise, but when those thoughts are hindered by negativity, a negative outcome will result.

Develop Coping Strategies Now

In my view, coping is one important factor behind anxiety attacks. It’s the lack of coping skills that seem to give anxiety an open door.

 

It makes sense when you realize how stressful it can be to get caught in a situation that, at least for the short term, is out of your control. Naturally, anxiety is going to jump right in because that’s what anxiety does. It forces us to make a decision and it gives us the adrenalin to do whatever is necessary to survive.

 

During human’s early development, that adrenalin rush gave us the strength to run from a dangerous situation or fight with whatever was threatening us. Things are much different today, but the body’s “fight or flight” response remains intact.

 

You might ask, what happens to that extra unreleased adrenalin. For one thing, tension results because we haven’t dealt with the fear effectively. As pioneers, we would have fought or run for our lives. Afterwards, we would have felt drained but tension-free. Problem solved.

 

Today more aspects of our lives are out of our control. Without a job, we don’t eat. Without money, we lose our house or we can’t heat it. We can’t clothe ourselves or take care of our families. We must follow certain rules of society that didn’t exist in the time our descendants. These are all situations that can cause fear and anxiety. If the fear is allowed to continue, we will become frustrated and anxious. If these issues remain unresolved, depression will result.

 

It’s important, therefore, to find out how to release that adrenalin-induced tension and fear quickly and effectively.

 

I firmly believe that by developing coping skills, we can keep our anxiety attacks to a minimum. The key is to have those skills in place before they are needed.

 

The first step, therefore, might be to determine what things in your life are stressful now that make you feel like you have no control over the outcome.

 

Fear will cause some people to avoid whatever is causing it. For example, if you are afraid of elevators or flying, you will do whatever is necessary to avoid those things. This doesn’t resolve the fear, however. It simply lets you hide from it.

 

It’s been my experience that one fear can soon lead to another until you become paralyzed by a number of perceived life-threatening situations. While avoidance might appear to give you control, it really doesn’t do so very effectively. At best, it is only a temporary solution.

 

If you fear elevators, for example, you will be restricted by places you can go. If, at any time, you have to visit a relative in a high rise or have an injury and cannot take the stairs, your ability to cope in those situations will be over.

 

We’ve all heard about the buddy system, where you find someone who will help you through some form of rehabilitation. We’ve also heard the expression, “do that which you fear”. In other words, if you force yourself to go to places that scare you, you will eventually become desensitized to them.

 

The first recommendation, then, is to take a look at your current coping skills. When difficulties arise, how do you deal with them? Does your method resolve the issue or does it merely delay the inevitable?

 

Some people don’t resolve issues; rather, they dwell on them. This merely serves to magnify the problem because the more they examine the issue at hand, the more problems they’ll find and the less able they will feel about ever finding a solution to make it go away.

 

One of the best coping skills I can recommend is to look ahead, not back. In other words, don’t spend more time on the issue than is absolutely necessary. Take the time to evaluate all the ins and outs of the situation and look for the positives.

 

Here’s a situation that put the fear into me, along with major stress and anxiety.

 

Not long ago, I inherited an estate that included a huge tax bill. It was substantial to the point I would end up losing the house and all my savings. I would have no where to live and no money left to rent an apartment or even a room. At 60 years of age, this was an extremely fearful concept for me.

 

Now, this might be an extreme situation, but it was nonetheless true. I was devastated. My blood pressure went sky high and I felt those distinguishing symptoms of an oncoming anxiety attack. I began to sweat, my body tensed, I felt nauseous and my head was spinning. It wasn’t just my mind that went haywire – my entire body felt like it was suddenly escaping my control. I began to panic and wanted to just curl up in bed and hide.

 

Twenty years ago, this would have triggered a full-blown panic attack, but this time it didn’t. Once the initial shock of my predicament was over, I began to think rationally, but I had to force it. All I really wanted to do was focus on the tax bill and figure out who at the government I could beg to give me a break. Of course, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. When governments want their money, they’ll do whatever they need to do to get it, regardless of the person’s resulting welfare.

 

Actually, it was a good thing for me to realize that fact, because it just made me mad and increasingly determined to find a more creative solution. In the end, I came up with two options, other than selling the house. Selling wasn’t really an option because the remaining money wouldn’t sustain me for long. It was imperative that I keep the house.

 

To make a long story short, I was fortunate to get a mortgage and pay off the government and although it resolved the immediate emergency, it leaves me with another bill I can barely afford to pay. The important thing for me to remember is that I now have control. I can sell if I want or I can go after the second option or I can work harder on my business to make the money needed.

 

Sometimes, solutions might be short term and that can be a good thing because it gives us a break. It enables us to release the fear and tension and, hopefully, avoid a full-blown anxiety attack. Remember, though, that a more permanent solution eventually is needed – the sooner the better.

 

One step at a time, is my motto. Today I have the mortgage. The next step is to stay motivated and not succumb to anxiety and panic, or even depression. By being strong, I know I can resolve this once and for all. It might not be next week or even next year, but it will happen because I know I can make it happen.

 

It’s this inner strength that we all need in order to overcome the situations that bombard our lives and trigger stress and anxiety.

 

Start developing your strength today by taking on the issues that cause you anxiety one at a time. Do it in small steps. Focus on the carrot at the end of the stick. What good will come of your progress?

 

You’ll never fear another elevator or flight. You’ll be able to visit loved ones, wherever they are. You can take those terrific exotic trips or alpine vacations if you wish.

 

It’s sure to be a bit difficult at first, but persist and you will win. You will take back control of your life, one step at a time. If you need support, don’t hesitate to ask a loved one or seek other sources to help you through each step.

 

Start today, and by the time an anxiety-inducing situation arises, you will be equipped to deal with it quickly and move on with your life.

 

Frustration plays a role in depression

Many of you might already know that depression is often linked to a chemical imbalance in the body. This means that something biologically is causing the depression. The degree of imbalance determines how deep and severe is the depression.

Some depression is a normal part of life. We get depressed when we lose a loved one or because we didn’t get the job we desperately needed. Normal depression generally only lasts a few weeks at most and generally does not require treatment. When it continues over months, however, it is considered clinical depression that needs treatment.

Depression is also an hereditary trait and that’s something we can do little about. One consideration is that we learn to react with depression by following our parents’ lead, if they suffer with depression. After all, youngsters learn by example which makes it more crucial that parents who have this condition seek solutions so they do not influence their children in that way.

It can be difficult to determine whether it’s strictly biological or from example, but the fact remains, life is not of good quality when depression darkens it.

In some cases, the depression is limited to our youthful years and resolves on its own once the biological changes that come with growth have finished.

As teens, we go through a lot of emotional and biological changes. We are concerned with how our peers view us and if we are accepted into the group. We are also struggling with our identities. Who are we going to be? How are we going to react? How do we feel about our own sexuality? It’s a period of testing, questioning and experimenting to find answers.

As adults, we are pretty much set in our ways and in some cases, depression is part of our lives. In intermittent depression, however, it might be easy to determine its cause.

There is a cycle we go through at certain events in our lives that might give us a clue to a certain depressive episode.

When we are put in a difficult situation from which there seems no way out, we might start out angry at the situation. Despite our efforts, the situation cannot be resolved and our anger, which is also unresolved, turns into frustration. Frustration left to simmer will turn into depression.

In my life, I’ve learned to recognize this cycle when it starts and can now stop it.

Knowing how to identify the source of your depression can help significantly to easing your symptoms and frequency of attacks.