How Can I Overcome Anxiety and Intrusive Thoughts?

Posted on July 16, 2009
Filed Under Health | 3 Comments

by Gordon Dalwood

What are you thinking right now? The thoughts on your mind can make all of the difference, something that people who suffer from panic attacks are all too familiar with. Just one intrusive thought can get you started on a spiral that leads to exactly what you’d feared; a full blown panic attack. Worrying about your family, your career, health and so on when there is no good reason to be concerned, only gets you worked up and fuels anxiety.

These thoughts are deeply rooted in your previous experiences because you worry too much about the disasters that might fall on your lap. The more you entertain those thought the deeper you sink into a depression. In allowing those thoughts to rule you, you eventually find yourself in its tight grip. You are obsessed with those thoughts and your fear escalates beyond rational belief.

It’s not just your mind that suffers either. Anxiety, panic and depression can make it hard to sleep or eat, causing you to lose weight, feel tired and have a decline in your general health. You might find these physical symptoms alarming, starting you on yet another panic attack! Anxiety disorders can also make it difficult to interact with other people – even your family and friends.

Many of those who live with chronic anxiety, panic and depression are afraid to get help. They often think that seeking medical treatment means being committed against their will to some sort of institution, or simply fear being stigmatized as depressed. This is one thing they really needn’t worry about . Panic attacks can be managed, prevented and in most cases, cured completely. In order to get control of those intrusive thoughts, you have to learn to turn those negative thoughts into positives.

You can begin reducing the power that your intrusive thoughts have over you by making some adjustments to your lifestyle. Keep busy with work, volunteer activities and spending time with family and friends. If you can keep your mind occupied and your focus outside yourself, those intrusive thoughts will have fewer opportunities to start you on the downward path towards panic. No one can control every thought that they have, but there is one thing we can do – we can change the way we react to negative, intrusive thoughts.

Try telling yourself that your intrusive thoughts and negative patterns of thinking have never done you a bit of good and that they’ve always been wrong about their dire predictions. You can also take their power away by imagining cheerful, pleasant images in their place. This takes the fear away and lets you start taking control away from your intrusive thoughts.

Loneliness reinforces negative thinking; so does fatigue. Make more time to spend with family and friends and take part in activities that help you burn off nervous energy and try to find the humor in the world – there’s a lot of truth to the old saw about laughter being the best medicine.

If you intend to begin therapy to help treat your anxiety and panic attacks, you should see out a local support group to augment your one on one therapy sessions. These group therapy settings provide people struggling with anxiety a lot of emotional support. Once you meet others who are dealing with the same problems as you are, the burden of managing your anxiety seems like a much lighter one.

About the Author:
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Comments

3 Responses to “How Can I Overcome Anxiety and Intrusive Thoughts?”

  1. how to deal with anxiety on July 16th, 2009 7:19 am

    Great post. Some other natural anxiety remedies to look into are St.John’s Wort, SAMe, L-Theanine, and Tryptophan. There’s also cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and programs like Panic Away and The Linden Method, to name a few. Hope this helps!

  2. martha langley on July 16th, 2009 12:50 pm

    Anxiety disorders are astonishingly common. They include Panic, Phobias (including Agoraphobia and Social Phobia), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. For many people self-help is a viable way forward and this is why we wrote our book Free Yourself from Anxiety. We aim to show you, step-by-step, how to set up and follow an individually tailored self-help programme.

    Part one looks at lifestyle, because very often the way you live is contributing to Anxiety. By making simple changes you can get yourself fit and ready to tackle your Anxiety driven behaviours.

    Part two shows you how to challenge your Anxiety in a safe controlled way, by setting small goals that take you gradually towards letting go of anxious behaviours.

    Part three shows you how to recognise your anxious thinking, challenge it, and ultimately change it.

    Part four explains how to delve into some of the deeper issues that may be driving Anxiety. We also suggest where it might be appropriate for you to seek professional help.

    Our aim in this book is to be as comprehensive as possible. Each reader will be able to decide which aspects of the recovery programme they need to complete and which are not relevant to them. In addition we have only discussed proven safe techniques.

    Throughout the book we have used the words of Anxiety sufferers who are in various stages of recovery to illustrate our points

    The authors

    Emma Fletcher is a UK-registered counsellor with 20 years experience of helping anxiety sufferers and of training counsellors and volunteers on anxiety help-lines. She remains firmly committed to the self-help principle and believes that much of her work consists of giving her clients the tools to enable them to live more effectively. This book is an attempt to bring those tools to a wider audience.

    Martha Langley is a professional writer and journalist. She has more than 10 years experience as a volunteer on helplines for people dealing with Anxiety and has also been a one-to-one mentor and recovery group leader. This has given her an insight into the difficulties faced by people trying to put self-help techniques into practice. Her aim in Free Yourself from Anxiety was to explain these techniques, to explain the reasoning behind them, and to make practical suggestions that will give every reader the best chance of recovery.

    Free Yourself From Anxiety ISBN 978-1- 84528-311-7 is available from bookshops, book websites and Amazon US on
    http://www.amazon.com/Free-Yourself-Anxiety-self-help-overcoming/dp/1845283112/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247762277&sr=8-4 or Amazon UK on
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Yourself-Anxiety-Self-help-Overcoming/dp/1845283112/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233135806&sr=1-1

  3. anxiety remedy on August 20th, 2009 10:13 am

    Great post. Some natural anxiety remedies to look into are St.John’s Wort, SAMe, L-Theanine, and Tryptophan. There’s also cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and programs like Panic Away and The Linden Method, to name a few. Hope this helps!

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