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How to Handle Worry and Anxiety Effectively
Anxiety is the most common mental health condition. Beyond being an unpleasant experience in itself, it can contribute to sleep problems, work impairment, and even physical health issues. Rates of reported anxiety have been steadily rising over the past two decades, especially among young adults and teens.
To understand anxiety, we first need to explore its core element — worry. Worry is something almost everyone experiences; in fact, studies show that more than 90% of people experience worry daily. Surveys also reveal that one in four adults says they worry “most of the day” at least once a week. When the habit of worrying becomes persistent, excessive, chronic, and difficult to control, it turns into anxiety. Therefore, while all anxiety involves worry, not all worry amounts to anxiety.
Considering the rapidly rising global problem of worry and anxiety, it is important to learn how to handle them properly in order to reduce these challenging experiences.
To solve any problem, we must first understand it. The same applies here: to address worry and anxiety, we need to know what they are, how they form, and then find practical ways to work with them.
The first and most important step is to turn our attention inward and observe what happens within us that leads to the experience of worry. If we look closely, we can notice that a thought appears in the mind saying, “What if … happens in the future?” — and we may fill in the blank with any undesirable outcome. This thought about an imagined future event is powerful enough to draw our attention into itself. Once our attention becomes absorbed in that thought, it proliferates into more of the same, fueled by imagination and memory. read more…
Arts and Mindfulness
Most of us, if not all, have experienced the profound joy of art, whether through engaging in different forms of art or enjoying its end product. People go to art museums, music concerts, and theaters to experience the joy of arts, let alone the many who engage in different forms of arts, enjoying it. You may also know about the creativity attributed to arts, as well as its therapeutic effects. Have you ever wondered what is in the arts that can bring about joy, creativity, healing, and all other benefits?
Well, arts in any form have the potential power to bring your attention to the present moment and all it contains, which results in experiencing joy, emotional awareness, and creativity.
If you are an artist or one of many who appreciate and enjoy arts, you might be interested in knowing more about this potential power in order to benefit more from arts. To do so, let’s begin by exploring the present moment and how arts can affect our relationship with it, leading to its key attributes. read more…
Reacting vs. Responding
Have you ever experienced regretting your words in a conversation or your act when overwhelmed by emotion in a relationship? Have you noticed how you usually come up with better words or acts in response to the same situation later on when reviewing the past in your mind?
Many of us have experienced having thoughts repeatedly reviewing a conversation we already had and replacing our words with better ones while regretting what we did or didn’t say and how our conversation ended. And it’s not just about conversations; it’s about many of our interactions in day-to-day life. We might’ve acted out our anger, hurting our loved one’s feelings, and regretted what we said or did days after. We might’ve replied to an email when overwhelmed by frustration and regretted it a second after we pushed the sent button. And the examples are endless.
It seems as if we know better after the moment is gone. And we might wonder why those better responses didn’t show up at the right moment when needed.
We might’ve even promised ourselves that we would say or do the right thing next time, but when the next time comes, we repeat ourselves again and again in different situations despite knowing the better way. It seems like the habit of our mind takes over the situation and reacts before we have a chance to respond the way we want.
If it resonates with you, let’s explore this matter together, learn about the habit of the mind, and see if there is a way to come out of this habituality and respond to any situation to the best of our abilities where there is no room to regret. Needless to say, the best of our abilities changes and grows over time as we learn and grow through our experiences. read more…
Is Practicing Mindfulness For Everyone?
Mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular worldwide, and many would want to try it and practice mindfulness as it claims a wide range of benefits, from enhanced focus and attention, creative thinking, and emotional intelligence, as well as reducing the extra amount of stress and anxiety, and many more. With all those benefits, practicing mindfulness is believed to improve the overall quality of life.
But the question is, is practicing mindfulness the right fit for everyone?
To know the answer, we should clearly understand what practicing mindfulness is about. And to understand that, we should first know what mindfulness is. So let’s begin with an overview of mindfulness itself.
To be mindful means to be aware. And I understand the mind’s natural response to this statement, asking, “Aware of what?” Now it might confuse the mind even more, reiterating that mindfulness is about awareness itself, the awareness that comes from non-judgemental, caring attention to the present moment.
What Is Conscious Breathing? And How Does It Serve Us?
We might’ve heard about or encountered different types of breathing techniques and their benefits. And we might’ve wondered whether it was worth trying and, if so, which one could work better for us. We might’ve even tried different types of breathing when stressed or overwhelmed. Some of us might’ve experienced some ease and relief when practicing it, and others might’ve found it useless. Yet, with all the differences in types, techniques, and seemingly different benefits, conscious breathing is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. And why is that?
Let’s explore what conscious breathing is and how it serves us.
Conscious breathing simply means to be conscious of our breath. Now the question is, what does it mean to be conscious of our breath, and how being conscious of the breath might help us with anything?
To be conscious of our breathing is to focus our attention deliberately on the breath. read more…
Finding Happiness Within
Everyone wants to be happy. In fact, whatever we do or whatever we want is ultimately to be happy and at peace. And that’s true for everyone, everywhere, and in any experience. It’s a desire we’re born with it. A baby wants to be in the parent’s arms to be happy. A toddler wants attention or a toy to be happy. A teenager may want to be recognized by friends to be happy. An adult may want a particular relationship, position, or possession to be happy, and the list goes endless. But why does happiness seem so hard to achieve despite the variety of causes? And even when achieving any of those goals, happiness doesn’t last long. What is happiness?
To explore happiness, let’s imagine you wanted a specific car for a long while, and you finally got it after some years of planning and working hard. You feel very happy when you put your hands on the steering wheel for the first time. The happiness lasts for a day or a week when driving the car, and perhaps when you show its special features to a friend. And then three weeks later, you’re driving the same dream car to work, and you don’t feel that happiness anymore. You’re back to thinking about all your life problems while driving again. And the joy you experienced when first driving the car seems far away. What do you think has happened?