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Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
51–60 of 243 posts
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#52I believe that an inappropriate anxiety response is typically one element of a syndrome, and generally not a stand alone response. Most likely, if you are focusing on anxiety to the exclusion of other aspects of your life, and I mean past, present and future life, you are likely missing opportunities to effectively address it.
That said, one therapy that has worked for at least one person I know was Dielectical Behavior Therapy[0]. As they went through the program, they learned that their hyper-arousal to any unexpected event led to an anger response that led to saying terrible things to the person who had not behaved as expected. This led to a general mistrust of others and a dwindling supply of friends who transitioned to acquaintances who then stopped calling entirely.
DBT get them to recognize that their response was not typical and offered a path to practice alternate responses. They learned to defer their response and seek clarification or confirm intentions before reacting. They've become a much less unpleasant person to be around.
[0] https://www.verywellmind.com/dialectical-behavior-therapy-10...
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recent mentions of mindfulness have made it obsolete as it is something that akkktually does not work and it should not be advised as something that works(for everyone). Well, the reason here is that I tried mindfulness(because I was probably extremelly stressed out from what was going on around me at that time) and it was not working and here is why(from REAL expert): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-r…
I think mindfulness here is meant as a synonym for a particular type of meditation. This article is broadly correct from my perspective—we should approach meditation with some caution, because it is not a well-defined self-therapy modality. It's quite possible, with the wrong practice instruction, to end up hurting yourself, or just getting nowhere. Meditation—and even just mindfulness meditation—is a domain of pract…
> I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions).
How many teachers actually have this, and how can one know that the one you’ve chosen is one of them?
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#54Eh, a gross oversimplification. Feeling troubled by being anxious in the modern world is a "cerebral" issue. The guy who mistook an innocent animal as a tiger and freaked out because of it didn't feel bad for feeling anxious for no reason. We do. Because it interferes with our daily functioning / responsibilities in the modern world. Anxiety is also very frequently comorbid with other mental disorders. Especially OCD…
The argument makes more sense when you realise that Valium/Diazepam is basically a muscle relaxant.
Edit: Source here, happy to hear from another domain expert refuting this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAOnSbDSaOw&list=PL848F2368C...
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#55Who in their right mind would take their psychological advice from a fiction writer?!? First, no, anxiety is not in your body. Fear, just like any other emotion is in your brain. You might get physiological responses in the form of chemicals in your body. That is an effect, not a cause. Second, neocortex is not "thinking brain," its role is to manage social interactions. Cognition is a small part of that. Third, mind…
> First, no, anxiety is not in your body. Fear, just like any other emotion is in your brain. You might get physiological responses in the form of chemicals in your body. That is an effect, not a cause.
Do you have a source for this? I remember seeing an article on (I think) HN about research indicating gut bacteria influences emotions which would seem to me to indicate cause rather than effect. Perhaps it’s impossible to definitively say either way. I can certainly see anxiety being the sort of thing where a feedback loop spirals out of control.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#56As a person who is currently in CBT (and seeing positive results), the biggest thing that helped me is to understand trauma, and cognitive distortions.
Just as this article says, your thinking brain is trying to piece together and digest what has happened. The problem is often that we repress it during the peaceful down time that our thinking brain is trying to make sense of it. We drown it out with drugs and alcohol, or we try to make ourselves so busy that we don’t think about it (hence creating more anxiety through work issues, family drama, or overstimulation). Best thing that works for me is to learn to accept it. Process it. Digest it. Learn and talk through examples of how it’s safe to experience the world again. This is part of the de-escalation process. Note, this goes against advice of “oh just don’t worry about it”. This approach is essentially “okay self, bad shit happened, let’s finally talk about it”. Your thinking brain is designed to keep bringing this up until it gets resolution. This is resolution.
And cognitive distortions helps me because I understand now how my mind plays tricks on me. When I say things like “this bad thing happened, I’ll never be able to get over it”, it’s giving too much power to that bad event. I don’t have to feel or think that way. I’m allowed to change my thought process and think “yeah that bad event happened, but I can’t let it be the end of the world for me.”
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#57Just seeing the picture of the article made by throat getting bigger from the inside. Anxiety sucks.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#58I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah.
"...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle.
If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering.
If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in the sadness.
If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.”
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#59I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah. "...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in t…
I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.
Re: Anxiety is in your body, not your mind
#60I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was…
> I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things
If you can do something about it, go do it. No need to worry, act.
If you can’t ... well it’s out of your hands anyway, why worry about it.