8 Questions That’ll Help Calm You When You’re Anxious

Worries and stressful thoughts attack each of us by surprise, and it is not easy for everyone to deal with them; they can paralyze us and prevent us from acting, which in most cases leads us to an even worse situation than we feared. However, there are a number of psychologists recommended questions that you can ask yourself in the event of worry whose answers will help to reassure you. So the next time you are too stressed out about something, try asking yourself the following 8 questions, answer them honestly and let the answers you think of come free you and relax your worries.

1. "What evidence do I have that my fear will materialize?" 

The next time you are confident about something bad or embarrassing that is about to happen to you, ask yourself what evidence you have that it will happen. "The questions we want to ask need to anchor us back into reality," says Dr. Joshua Klapow, a psychologist, and professor at the University of Alabama. Therefore, you have to answer this question based on the evidence you have, not based on your feelings.

2. "What are the best, worst, and most realistic scenarios that can play out?"  

When you try to see things as they are, objectively, ask yourself that question. "When people are stressed, they focus on the worst case scenario, which hardly ever happens," says Dr. Paul DePompo, a psychologist from southern California, USA. "Teach yourself to concentrate not just on one bad scenario, but on all three types of scenarios, refocusing primarily on the realistic scenario, - will help calm you down."

3. "Based on past experience, how will I cope with this frightening situation in the end?"

If you become anxious every day on your way to work, or whenever you need to speak to an audience, think about the way you have dealt with this problem before. "You're still here, safe and sound, right? That means you've survived the same scary situation many times before and you'll be able to deal with it again," says Dr. DePompo. "Anxious people filter out all the times they have coped and handled things well." That's why recalling past successes can really help. So try to remember consciously the previous experience that relates to the current stressful situation, and let your experience assure you that everything will be all right.

4. "Am I worrying just to worry?  

None of us is deliberately worried, but anxiety can become a kind of unintended habit for our brains. So asking this question can help you overcome your worries, in case you have become used to responding this way to any stressful situation. Try to understand whether you are worried because "something" can happen - and theoretically anything can happen so that every little step in life should be stressful - or whether your concern stems only from habit, and in this case remind yourself that life is simpler than it seems and that all things tend to turn out well.

5. "Is my health actually in danger?"  

Sometimes when we are under great stress for a long time, we begin to feel its effects on our bodies. It is very important that you know that in the case of anxiety and stress, in the vast majority of cases, the answer to the question in the title is "no" - "anxiety is a mental and psychological state," says Dr. Nicole Martinez Psy.D, LCPC. "It is excessive worry, restlessness, racing heart, palpitations, to name a few of the symptoms." While these symptoms are terrible in themselves, you must keep telling yourself that everything will be fine, because everything will probably work out, so you can relax. 

 

6. "Am I safe?"  

Stress increases when our brain activates a mechanism that signals danger, but in reality, chances are that you are just sitting on your living room couch or with friends and family who are worried about you, and you are not in real danger. In the past, our brain would have worked like this if we had encountered a lion or other predator, for example, but today we are not living in the wild and such dangers are not everywhere. So when you get stressed, just look around, collect information to confirm that everything is fine, and let reality reassure you.

7. "Why do I feel so anxious?" 

If anxiety suddenly attacks you, ask yourself immediately why it happened. "Identifying the source of your anxiety is the most effective way to start treating it," says Dr. Carol Lieberman, a well-known psychologist who has a mental health radio show. Try to understand what caused the anxiety to appear, and why it is so threatening or important. 

 

8. "What is the story I create for myself?" 

While it is not your fault that you feel stressed, tense and anxious, your thoughts may make things worse than they really are. So you have to ask yourself what story you are creating in your mind. Coach Mattison Grey, MEd, MMC (IAC) says: "For example, if you have a job interview soon, you may be worried that you’ll screw it up.” Failure in the job interview is the story that you have invented for yourself about what will happen in the future. Since this story is not based on evidence, but on gut feelings only, you must release it and invent the story you wish to realize.

It is much easier to talk about these tips than to do them because anxiety can be a hugely destructive force, but if you are willing to challenge your thoughts and ask the right questions, you may be able to see things differently and calm yourself. This is what experts recommend, and it will help you deal with worrying situations in a more positive and beneficial way than giving in to your fears and anxiety.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

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The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older

We spend a lot of energy looking for shortcuts to save time, and sure, those shortcuts add up. But when I look back, my biggest time regrets aren't spending too much time on Twitter or mismanaging my daily tasks. Those are bad habits, but there are bigger, more systematic time wasters that have really gotten in the way. Fixing these will free up a massive amount of time and energy.

Not Asking for Help

My first week on my first job out of university, my boss handed me a huge spreadsheet. He told me to organise it in a way that made zero sense to me. Being a quiet, timid person, I simply nodded, walked back to my desk and stared at that spreadsheet for like an hour, hoping to make some sense of it (yep, just like George Costanza and the Penske file).

Finally, my coworker came in, and I confessed I had no idea what to do. He broke it down for me, then dropped some advice that's stuck with me ever since: "You might feel dumb asking questions, but you look dumber when you don't get it because you failed to ask."

It was harsh, but true. And not only did I look like an arse, I could've also saved a fair amount of time that day by simply asking my boss what he meant. It made me wonder how much time I'd wasted by not asking for help over the years. As dumb as you might feel asking questions, it's the fastest way to get an answer.

Similarly, asking for help is a great way to, well, get help. This is why networking and finding a mentor are hugely valuable. If you feel stuck in your career or need to learn new skills and have no idea how to get started, talking to other people in your field will go a long way. Even if it's just shooting someone a short email, asking for help is like a shortcut for your career. Try Leo Widrich's formula for asking for help via email:

2-3 sentences of honest appreciation. There is a reason you are asking someone for help. They have a lot of experience in that field, worked on a startup/idea related to what you are working on or else. If you do this, it shows them you have thought about why picking them out to ask for help.

1 sentence that states a single, focused question people can give you an answer to. Here is one that worked very well when I asked Noah:

"What was the single, most valuable user acquisition strategy for Mint after you hit 100K users?"

Here's another way to look at it: if you're not asking for help, you're probably not challenging yourself enough. If you have all the answers, you're not learning new skills, trying new things or moving forward and out of your comfort zone. There are a handful of reasons we don't ask for help, but it's usually because we're too proud or scared, and that's a huge waste of time, because it keeps you from moving forward.

Trying to Make Bad Relationships Work

Relationships require maintenance, but there's a difference between maintaining a good relationship and trying to force a bad one that doesn't make much sense to begin with.

There's a lot of emotion in romance and friendships, so sometimes it's hard to tell when you should keep trying or you should just call it quits. Like a lot of people, I made some common bad decisions that wasted both my time and the time of the person I was with. For example:

There are good reasons for wanting to make a relationship work, but those aren't good ones. They cloud your judgment, prolong your unhappiness and distract you from things that matter to you most. At the same time, it's hard to say all bad relationships are a total waste of time, because you learn a lot about yourself from them. That's a valid silver lining, but still, the sooner you learn those lessons, the better.

Similarly, not dealing with the emotional impact of a breakup is also a big waste of time. When a relationship ends, we usually go through the typical stages of grief associated with loss. It's easy to get comfortable with denial and convince ourselves we don't really care and we're fine. In reality, ignoring the pain only prolongs it. Our work suffers; the rest of our relationships suffer.

Dwelling on Your Mistakes and Shortcomings

Learning from your mistakes is one thing. Dwelling on them wastes your time, diminishes your confidence, and keeps you from getting on with your life.

Dwelling also makes you more apt to repeat your mistakes. In a study, researchers asked subjects to spend money during an imaginary trip to the mall. Before "shopping", some subjects were asked to recall a past financial mistake. They found those subjects were more likely to incur debt. A press release for the study concluded:

Perhaps the most surprising, Haws said, is that searching through the past can negatively affect behaviour, depending on the ease of recall, even when past examples are positive...Instead of dwelling on the past, Haws said, her research into behaviour suggests that setting goals for the future can positively change present behaviour...In short, if we want to have better self-control, "Look forward," Haws says. "Don't look back."

When you think about your own experiences, it probably makes sense. Dwelling makes you feel like a failure. When I feel like a failure, it's easy to tell myself there's no point in trying, because I already suck. (Hence, getting further into debt when you already feel like an overspender.)

Of course, you don't want to skip over your mistakes and ignore them either. The goal is to glean something from them, then release the failure. I like Emilie Wapnick's process for doing this:

In order to let the past go, you must forgive yourself officially.

Feel the embarrassment or shame one final time. Really feel it throughout your body. Next, tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes and you know you that that outcome was not your intention. It was an accident. Finally, make the decision to forgive yourself and do it. It helps to even say it out loud.

From now on, it's OK. You are forgiven.

Every time the thought comes back, simply remind yourself that you have already been forgiven, so there's no reason to feel bad anymore. Then push the thought away.

One of my other big time regrets is not allowing myself to fail out of fear of my own shortcomings.

For years, I stayed in a comfortable place and didn't try to do things I wanted to do. I wanted to travel after high school, but I went to university close to home instead, because I was too shy to meet new people, and I was afraid I couldn't make it in another city. After university, I wanted to be a freelance writer, but I decided to find a more stable, accessible job instead, because that was easier. There's nothing wrong with wanting to live a stable, comfortable life, but I was doing it for the wrong reasons: because I was afraid to fail.

Eventually, I got tired of this. I decided to find work I actually enjoyed, travel more and live somewhere else. I made a ton of mistakes along the way, and even when I did succeed, I felt like an imposter. Still, I think the bigger mistake was not trying sooner. Even if I failed, I would have learned from my mistakes much sooner.

Worrying Too Much About Other People

It's easy to waste time worrying about other people, too. Don't get me wrong — your friends and loved ones mean a lot to you, and you want to spend time nurturing them. But we also spend a lot of time fretting over problems that don't matter in the long run.

For example, I spent years getting annoyed with people who undermine me. I complained about them, tried to understand them, wondered what was wrong with me that I inspired that kind of behaviour. Those habits always lead to a dead end, because they didn't involve action. The older I got, the less tolerant I became of this behaviour, and I learned to nip it in the bud.

I also indulged another time wasting emotion: jealousy. I compared myself to everyone, wanted what they had, and felt inadequate. Like most negative, destructive feelings, the first (and biggest) step to overcoming it is understanding it.

I paid attention to my jealousy and what triggered it, then learned that it was less about the other person and more about my own feelings of inadequacy. In short, I embraced that jealousy. Envy is a bit different, but it often comes from the same place, and here's what writer Trent Hamm suggests in dealing with your envy:

The question is, why do you want it in your life? I like to use the "five whys" when handling a question like this. Whenever I'm trying to answer a "why" question, I repeat it five times, asking it of the answer I come up with for each question. When you identify a particular strong desire that you have, step back for a moment and break it down into small pieces. Then, see if there isn't a way for you to address those smaller pieces in your own life. Again, let's take that international trip. What elements am I desiring when it comes to that trip? I want to expose my children to different cultures…. The thing is, when I start breaking that trip down into small pieces, I start seeing pieces that I can easily incorporate into my own life.

Once you understand why you feel jealous or envious, you can take action to take care of the problem, whether that means processing the emotions or coming up with goals for yourself. Either way, that's a lot more productive.

Most of us are probably guilty of all of these at some point, and really, they're human nature. Regret is another big waste of time, so there's no point in beating yourself up over these. The sooner you learn from them, though, the sooner you can free up your time and energy to live the life you want.

 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement