Why "doing Something Relaxing Does Not Help Your Anxiety

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.)

Hello please reblog this if you're okay with people sending you random asks to get to know you better

hey, is this lila?

-sunarin

ANEJQJEJW I'll die this is so sweet but I don't interact with character anons 👉👈 STILL MUAH ILY SUNA COME HERE ILL- hug you. Pg 13.

(Don’t) Let me be the judge of that

a/n: enemies to lovers w Osamu. Nothing more to say.

genre: mostly fluff, enemies to lovers au, fem!reader

warnings: Osamu being an ass in the beginning, swearing, mentions of social anxiety, 5.6k

《Synopsis: Osamu Miya is too judgemental for his own good, never accepting he’s simply wrong. You’re here to change that.》

Osamu Miya had a habit of judging people. It would take him one look and a few seconds to decide whether he liked someone or not, the answer often being the latter. But the worst part was just how stubborn and maybe a bit self-centered Osamu was. He trusted himself a little too much, and it was impossible to change his opinion of someone after he had made up his mind, and if he didn’t like someone, that was it, he would never grow to like them.

Or so everyone -including Osamu himself- thought until you entered his life.

~

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Love your posts about gojo being unfaithful discourse. Though at this point i think gege might have meant gojo just can't commit. He comes off as someone blunt so he'll probably break it off instead of cheat🤔. He also struck me as the type of guy that probably can't manage intimate relationships well. If we factor in how the clan families and how shaman society works it's actually surprising he didn't come off worse. Totally agree that if gojo finds the one. Someone that can relate to him in a lot of ways and can keep up. He's gonna fall hard. I imagine him either totally upping his flirt game for them or if we go for more cynical. He'll want to distant himself from them because of his trauma and lifestyle 🤔

Wow thank you for this ANSJAJS

First things first, I hadn't thought about the clans and the shaman society until now, thats genius and it actually helps me understand him a little better.

If you look at oppressing families, the children are often the type to rebel and/or do the exact opposites of what's expected of them. If you take this into regard, it's understandable why he fears commitments so. But, his lifestyle, his personality, his power and past traumas and everything are all creating a fear of being tied down, fear of losing freedom, fear of being limited.

If you just take his power in hands, limitless. Everything about Gojou is excessive, powerful, unruly. He likes being spontane, he likes working alone, he likes being able to do things because he wants to and not because it's asked for him to.

Even just his powers are telling us the kind of person he is, the kind of person that would fail in a relationship, according to the society.

Oh, if you take this into hands too, Gojou might have a fear of failure.

Think about it, he's thought to be a God, so powerful, he's a miracle, he's the beholder of the strongest bloodlines in one body. He's expected to be unbeatable, best at everything.

If you take this into regard, and if you consider the fact his personality is by society deemed the worst possible personality to be in a relationship with (even we, as his fans keep joking about how a relationship with him would suck) I think Gojo denies to enter a fully-committed relationship because he's afraid of failure.

He knows hes handsome, charismatic, anyhting a person would want from a man- but his personality is the deal breaker from relationships, and because he thinks knows even if he tries, Gojo can't have a long, healthy relationship, he does anyhting possible not to, just to never see himself failing.

It's on my Navi but I'll still announce it here too, I'm on a hiatus for 3 weeks, so I apologize for the inactivity from advance. See you in 3 weeks!!