A Note About Anxious Thoughts

Psychology Today has an article about dealing with those pesky anxious thoughts that come up. We all have them. The article recommends thinking about them as if they were those annoying popups that show up on your computer screen. When they show up we click them away and we are done with them. We can learn to do that with thoughts as well. Not everything we think of is worth paying attention to.

One of the concepts of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is that we can change our relationship to our thoughts. Folks who do this can become much less impulsive. That can make life quite a bit easier.

Pictured above is a Chinese Finger Trap. As with anxiety, the harder one pulls the worse it gets. Escape comes from relaxing into the trap and your fingers are released.

If anxiety is a problem for you, one cool thing about today is there are apps out there that are relatively inexpensive and you can use them to retrain your response to anxiety. If you have a more moderate anxiety issue, of course, you should check in with your medical provider and get some short term therapy. But these apps can be helpful to support your efforts.

Our present situation has exacerbated anxious tendencies. That’s understandable. I was chatting with my own physician the other day and he reported that his office is seeing “tons of anxiety concerns.” Depression also.

Self-care is an investment in yourself. It yields dividends both in the present and the future. Very much worth it.

Enjoy your Wednesday.