Excerpt from Calming Your Anxious Mind

Worry is another way thoughts and feelings can affect health. We have seen how worry can be understood as the patterns of thinking driven by feelings of anxiety. Often, the content of the thoughts reflects a person’s attempt to cope with or eliminate the discomfort and ill ease present as part of their experience of anxiety.

• About two-thirds of Americans classify themselves as worriers.
• About half of that group classify themselves as moderate worriers who worry between 10 and 50 percent of the day.
• The rest of the worriers report that they worry more than eight hours a day.
• Worry has been related to health problems. These include cardiac arrhythmias in patients who have had heart attacks, increased blood pressure in laboratory animals, and asthma in both adults and children.
• Uncertainty as an aspect of worry is particularly potent and toxic. When people are confronted by situations of high uncertainty, when they do not know what will happen next or how they should act, they can experience destructive feelings of helplessness and frustration. Uncertainty keeps people in a constant state of semi-arousal, unable to relax, and the price of this ongoing tension and stress is high.

excerpt from Little Ways to Keep Calm and Carry On

It’s very hard to be tense, anxious, or worried when you are physically relaxed. As we noted in lesson 1, anxiety and worry always imply the presence of a perceived threat. Because you believe danger is present, your body prepares to fight or flee. Your heart rate accelerates, your attention sharpens, the blood flow increases to your arms and legs, your muscles tense, and you’re ready for action. But staying wired like this for long periods can be hard on both the body and the spirit. Moreover, high levels of tension don’t promote clear thinking or effective problem solving. It’s time to relax.

Going for a run, a walk, or laps in the pool can also work well. A hot bath or a massage can help, or even a bit of dancing. If nothing else, just stand up in the middle of the room and shake out your tension. Any physical activity that releases physical tension from your body will help. One of the most effective relaxation methods is simply learning how to breathe. Yes, something as simple as breathing from your abdomen rather than using shallow chest breathing offers a host of benefits to your mind and body. You can do this anywhere: in your car, in a meeting, or even in line at the grocery checkout. It doesn’t take planning, time, or a change in your schedule. Try this:

by guest blogger Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, author of The Bipolar Workbook for Teens

I recently read an article about a study that compared high school and college students from 1938 to those in 2007, and concluded that mental health problems such as depression and anxiety are much more of a problem for modern-day students than they were in the past. It does seem that mental illness is affecting more and more people at a younger age – or perhaps we’re just more aware of these kinds of problems now. Regardless, there are things we can do to prepare kids better for the pressures they’ll be facing in life.

Excerpt from Yoga for Anxiety

Anxiety causes a shrinking in consciousness and a reduction in your sense of self. Growing in consciousness expands your sense of self; as you learn more about yourself, you discover that there’s much more to you than you ever dreamed possible.

Excerpt from The Mindful Path through Shyness

That we have emotions is a given. How we react or respond to them is a matter of choice. Victor Frankl offered the important insight that there’s a space between stimulus and response, and if we can pause and bring the full light of our awareness into it that space, we can free ourselves from automatic reactions that are often dysfunctional. Mindfulness practice will allow you to recognize that space and use it to respond to your emotions with clarity, compassion, and skillfulness.

Excerpt from Going Home without Going Crazy: How to Get Along with Your Parents and Family (Even When They Push Your Buttons)

Flooding occurs when an adrenaline over load over whelms parts of the brain. Have you ever been so upset you can’t think, can’t speak, can barely cope? That’s flooding. You may already know some thing about flooding from the fight-or-flight syndrome, where the more primitive parts of the brain over ride the more advanced parts. The result is knee-jerk fear or aggression and a distinct lack of level headed reason.

You can expect flooding to affect you both physically and mentally. Physical symptoms act like an early warning system.

Your ultimate goal is to control flooding rather than allow it to control you.