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Why "doing something relaxing” does not help your anxiety

A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.

This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.  

THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.

You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind. 

People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.

In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture. 

Therefore, I present to you: 

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS

–Go on a walk

–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.

–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching

–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind

–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift 

–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:

–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.

–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see. 

–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in. 

–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.) 

–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety. 

–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel. 

–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:

–List the capitals of all the U.S. states

–List the capitals of all the European countries

–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors. 

–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.

–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.  

Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself.  I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too. 

(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)

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lovelyplot

This would’ve been great an hour ago

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IMPORTANT! The EU is About to Destroy The Internet #DeleteArt13

Sign the Petition: https://saveyourinternet.eu/

EDRI Article: http://ow.ly/VEpH101689Z Techdirt article: http://ow.ly/gs9b101689X

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zjedzgoffra

Hope this will spread as much as save net neutrality posts

it’s way worse than that law actually, in US they “just” wanted your money, here the EU goverment wants to take our freedom without even giving a choice

SPREAD THIS

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ar-ameth

I’m just speechless. Dudes, this is wayyyy worse then The Net Neutrality bullshit in the US. Spread this like a wildfire! I don’t wanna lose everything I have thanks to this law!

Oh my gosh why am I only hearing about this now? Please everyone, spread this! Most of the time we talk about problems that are happening in the US but this time it’s in the EU and we need to stand against it!!

Please help if you can it’s going to make so much damage!  Just for an example, both of my blogs will disappear if it isn’t stopped, ao3 will also disappear for european countries just like every website like these ones.

So please, help!!

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gokuma

WTF

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reblogged

A small collection of drawings working out a design for Lou’s boss, Aphotis. I haven’t settled on colors or even pronouns. I’m kinda cycling between she/they/it. Frankly, it might just change day to day in canon too. Also, bonus Lou mimicking Dom. They can’t do metals and changing body shape/height is difficult and painful, so picture that as miniature bootleg Dom.

In Blades canon, a cataclysm caused the sun to go out and the gods to die with it. A very, very small number of these gods managed to escape to physical form first, at the cost of almost all of their power. One goddess - a goddess of love, beauty, and change - succeeded in constructing and assuming physical form. Before that transfer completed, however, a much weaker minor god - a trickster god of chaos and entropy - wriggled into the body out of sheer desperation. And thus, Aphotis was born. It’s two gods in one body, each constantly vying for the surface. The love goddess is much stronger, and much kinder, but she isn’t always the one piloting. The mask usually reflects who’s driving, with it being intact and usually serene for the goddess, and crumbling for the chaos god. However, chaos god has been known to try to keep it together enough to fool Lou into a false sense of security. The rest under a cut because this post is already long enough as is

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reblogged

Exactly

if jesus is so good how come there isn’t a jesus 2

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pochowek

isnt waiting for jesus 2 a huge thing in christianity

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reblogged

color practice without using color picker but it’s really hard bc the reference is on a different screen with different color profiles. [photo source]

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bob-belcher
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knitmeapony

Mark Hamill goodnaturedly patting Chadwick Boseman on the shoulder to celebrate his success is one of the most blessed images I’ve ever seen.

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fuocogo

This is the Money Chadwick. Reblog In 47 minutes to get 48 million dollars.

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posercore

Y'all ever just suddenly have the overwhelming urge to swim??? Like not actively but you just wanna,,, be in the water and have some Peace

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parttimepup

Yes it’s called the mammalian diving response and it’s also why doing face masks and taking a shower is soothing. Our amphibian ancestors used this mechanism to slow down the heartbeat and lower body temperature so as not to waste calories while swimming (which is very calorie intensive). It makes you feel safe because predators are less likely to get you in water than on land. The fish brain is alive and well in all of us.

It’s literally activated by putting water on the face.

My amphibian ancestors gave me the instinct to dissociate in the shower for hours on end

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