[jake1720]

Alright. I have an issue.

I'm always, I mean always worried about something. I learned game, that was not too bad, though I did ignore my career a little more than I would have liked. Always stressed about something. (See my last GPA post? Worried about something that I won't have to deal with for a year...It's still above a 3.0. There are kids in my class with 2.5s that don't give a crap at all). If I had a job I would probably worry about losing it. If I had a business I would probably worry it would fail. You get the idea.

The problem is my brain literally can't stop worrying. It worries about everything.

Every time I fix something a new issue comes up. Right now I'm at Hawaii at my moms and I STILL CAN'T STOP WORRYING. Something is wrong.

I keep worrying about not being successful... even though I'm doing pretty well in life. Then I find something new to worry about. You get the idea.

It scares friends away, and I hate feeling like this.

So Rooshv, how the hell do I stop worrying?

[Dusty]

(07-29-2015 11:59 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

Alright. I have an issue.

I'm always, I mean always worried about something. I learned game, that was not too bad, though I did ignore my career a little more than I would have liked. Always stressed about something. (See my last GPA post? Worried about something that I won't have to deal with for a year...It's still above a 3.0. There are kids in my class with 2.5s that don't give a crap at all). If I had a job I would probably worry about losing it. If I had a business I would probably worry it would fail. You get the idea.

The problem is my brain literally can't stop worrying. It worries about everything.

Every time I fix something a new issue comes up. Right now I'm at Hawaii at my moms and I STILL CAN'T STOP WORRYING. Something is wrong.

I keep worrying about not being successful... even though I'm doing pretty well in life. Then I find something new to worry about. You get the idea.

It scares friends away, and I hate feeling like this.

So Rooshv, how the hell do I stop worrying?

I can't elaborate now, but check out this thread on REBT/CBT.

PM me if you like.

[h3ltrsk3ltr]

I have been starting to suspect that anxiety is you body telling you you're doing something wrong, you realized it, and are trying to pretend that it's not the case.

[jake1720]

It could be. Feels like I've taken a wrong path in life. Not really sure however. Still on track to finish college at 23. Lots of stupid past mistakes however.

[Phoenix]

Sounds like general anxiety. Goodlookingloser has info on this.

[Sigma]

Hmm..this thread is interesting to me personally because I'm the exact opposite of what you describe, yet having a few close friends that worry way more than necessary, I always wonder how I can help them stop killing themselves.

They are their own harshest critics and i don't know if you're the same way but their worrying always leads to them berating themselves. Me personally, I'll worry a bit and if I figure there's nothing I can do, I decide why bother worrying and stressing myself out when I can't really do anything about it.

Obviously this is for cases when you deem that theres nothing you can do anyway. For situations where there is a solution, you should come up with a plan of action and execute, without wasting time.

Talking to my friends that worry a lot, I'm always thankful that I have this "quickly move on" characteristic to my personality, but at the same time I always wonder what I can say or do to help my buddies. They're great guys but sometimes the constant worrying and eventual downward spiral of them beating themselves up is a downer to those around them, so I wish they could cut back on this because I feel it would impact them negatively in future relationships with friends, coworkers, girls, etc.

To the OP you might be a person that keeps his worries to himself for the most part so all of what I've said may not apply to you but if any of it does I hope you can come up with a solution or at least an acceptable compromise. Either way let me/us know because I'm personally curious how I can help my friends of 10+ years stop abusing themselves.

Based on my personality I wish I could say "stop being a massive vagina and just deal with it" but besides this being how most dudes deal with their shit, I know my friends well enough that this wouldn't help anyone.

[DVY]

Smoke tree.
Art of Zen.
Golf.
"How to find freedom in an unfree world" by Harry Browne

[blck]

(07-29-2015 11:59 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

I'm always, I mean always worried about something. I learned game, that was not too bad, though I did ignore my career a little more than I would have liked. Always stressed about something [...] If I had a job I would probably worry about losing it. If I had a business I would probably worry it would fail. You get the idea.

The problem is my brain literally can't stop worrying. It worries about everything.

Every time I fix something a new issue comes up [...] Something is wrong.

I keep worrying about not being successful... even though I'm doing pretty well in life. Then I find something new to worry about. You get the idea.

It scares friends away, and I hate feeling like this.

When I have a problem, knowing the cause usually help me a lot.
Do you know about ANTs ?

You can't seem to stop worrying because you let your brain drift and an unchecked brain automatically pick wrong/negatives thoughts to dive in.
This is not a problem, just saying "NO" out loud can stop the process at first and it'll become a reflex until ANTs disappear.

The solution is to keep your brain on the rails, giving him good thoughts to process

You'll see life from another view point, get through the whole process but differently, you'll probably get epiphanies like "life not being good because you bought something even if MSM tell you the opposite" and shit like that but it can take some time.

There is no right path dude, they all lead to the same end : "Death" the only variable is will you regret having not live your life fully or will you die happy

Quote:

It’s All about the Journey, Not the Destination

[RoastBeefCurtains4Me]

I liked that ANTs link a lot. I'm very interested in this topic. I think of it as rewiring my brain, or being able to shape myself. There are a whole range of techniques for rewiring your brain. The Power of Positive Thinking uses this approach. You can do self hypnosis, or do mindfulness exercises. Mindfulness is a form of meditation, where you focus on being in the moment, but you can meditate on many things.

It all comes down to the difference between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Your SC mind includes your hamster, your emotional mind, and your lizard brain. There can be a lot of drives, motivations, and emotional processes going on in the SC, that we aren't aware of.

Part of the trick is to learn to become aware of some of these hamster processes, so we can cope with them consciously. The other part of the solution is to use these various techniques to send correct thoughts fron the conscious mind down into the SC, to retune it, and to straighten out messed up motivations and emotional loops.

The ANTs technique is a very good way to handle bad thoughts, and the idea of visualizing them as bugs to be stomped on is very vivid.

[vinman]

(07-30-2015 12:16 AM)h3ltrsk3ltr Wrote:  

I have been starting to suspect that anxiety is you body telling you you're doing something wrong, you realized it, and are trying to pretend that it's not the case.

Same could be said for insomnia as well.

[RexImperator]

One of the hardest things about mindfulness is to do it without self judgement. If you judge yourself harshly (a form of resistance to what is) it undermines the whole thing.

Accepting that you feel some anxiety will make you less anxious.

[Dusty]

The root causes of excessive worry usually boil down to two things:

1. Superstition. You think you have to ward off danger by being worried all the time. If you let your guard down and relax, then something bad will happen. You feel you have to be forever vigilant. The feeling of worry is like a rabbits foot.

2. Exaggeration. You think a catastrophe might occur at any moment and it worries you sick. You think in terms like "being ruined" or "devistated beyond recovery." The fact is 99% of people never experience a true catastrophe in life. Whether it's bankruptcy, losing a job, even the death of a loved one - people recover from all these things. Admittedly these things are bad and we don't want them to occur , but they don't ruin our lives (unless we sabatoge ourselves). We also exaggerate the probability of these bad things happening.

[RexImperator]

Re: #2. At its root all anxiety comes from projecting into an imaginary future, which does not exist.

[Beyond Borders]

Meditation, Man.

Seriously. I need to start doing it again myself, but on a purely practical level, this is exactly what meditation helps with. That nagging voice in your mind that never quite stops, the irratibility and the constant anxiety.

I find that even a mere 10 minutes every morning has a noticeable difference in how I respond to the world around me within a week or two. Ramp it up to 20 over time if you can.

[Fortis]

Smile, lift your head up and put your chest out. Doing these three things always seem to bring me "back" to reality.

[Aenigmarius]

(07-29-2015 11:59 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

I'm always, I mean always worried about something.

(07-29-2015 11:59 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  

The problem is my brain literally can't stop worrying. It worries about everything.

First of all, you have made yourself a victim... of yourself. You are saying that you are being terrorized by your own brain and there is nothing you can do about it.

That is wrong. You have to wake up and realize that "I can't make myself stop" is bullshit. It is an excuse.

You can stop worrying. You are in control of your own thoughts and your own brain. Telling yourself "I can't stop" is a cop out because you can stop, you just don't want to stop. Internally, you are getting something for this behavior that is making you continue the behavior. You are doing this to yourself for a reason. Worrying is the behavior, you have to figure out the cause and address the cause.

Break it down. What is this "worrying all the time" behavior doing for you? Is it paralyzing you, making sure that you don't actually do anything? Well, that probably means you are scared of change -- not just doing something and failing, but doing something and succeeding too, because you are scared of any change at all. Maybe you are at the point where its time to move into the next stage of your life, and you are resisting that. Growth is difficult, and a lot of times we put up barriers to stop it.

Go look in the mirror and tell yourself, firmly, that you are in control of your own thoughts and your own brain. Tell yourself that you can stop worrying and stop being anxious all the time. Do this every day, no matter how silly you feel.

Every time you feel those worrying thoughts come into your head, mentally stop yourself, and tell yourself that you are in control, and you do not need to worry about every little thing. Then, do something to distract yourself. Lift weights, play a game, go outside and interact with people. Interact with positive people and not people who will reinforce your worrying.

Take control of yourself. Stop believing that you are a victim of your own brain. You can stop this. You can do this, you just have to actually do it.

[amusedmastery]

There's a lot you can do:

1. Cut out caffeine. You don't need it and it exacerbates anxiety, tremors, etc.

2. Hard aerobic exercise of at least 60 min per day. No BS, either....You need to be pouring sweat. Running, steep hiking, hard resistance elliptical, biking, etc. push hard!!

3. Figure out the root cause of your stress and deal with it. This is key.

4. Deep breathing exercises. Breathe in for 6-7 secs, hold for 3, exhale slowly for 6-7. Do this about 5 times. Works great.

5. You're having an adrenaline response to a stressor. Realizing it's normal and we all go through it in life at times is essential.

6. You have to face your fears and attack them. Nervous about public speaking? Get out and join a toastmasters or get into outside sales. Afraid to talk to a pretty girl? Force yourself to go approach the next. Who cares if your hands shake and your voice quivers. After the 15th it won't. Worried about school? Study your ass off. You Will Not grow as a man unless you conquer your fears.

I work in outside sales and used to feel the adrenaline when I was about to make a field call. I kept doing it until I conquered the fear. Remember that this too will pass and people are truly focused on themselves, not you.

[GreenHills]

The easiest and necessary first step is to take care of your body. The body is amazing in this way that it takes care of your mind if you take care of it. Practically for free, since you didn't do any work on your mind, just your body. So, walks in nature, do some yoga. Whatever you like. And no caffeine, it's the worst for the anxious person.

I'm currently off of keeping a strict healthy lifestyle, but I had a three month period where I didn't drink, ate clean, stopped drinking coffee and spent a day a week in nature. Incredible difference. It's also nice to know that if shit happens and you need to get yourself together - these tools are easily available.

Also go to therapy, but stay only if you really like the therapist. Therapy does the following - you'll be continuously reassured in times of anxiety. After a while, this reassurement becomes your normal state. One year, two years - it's not a fast solution since you need to reverse settled patterns that have been baked into you since childhood. But you're only 23, so you have plenty of time.

Get down to the root of problems. Sit down with some paper and drill down a bit. So you're worried that you're not going to be successful. What if you're not successful? People will laugh at you? Can you handle someone laughing at you? You probably can, laugh never killed anybody.

[blck]

(07-30-2015 09:01 AM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  

I liked that ANTs link a lot. I'm very interested in this topic. I think of it as rewiring my brain, or being able to shape myself. There are a whole range of techniques for rewiring your brain.

Glad you find it useful.
Enforcing out of our old self/behaviour to live a new life is all you need to do, everytime someone post a new topic on wheelchair game or huge dong game is for another one to take something out of it.
The only way to shape yourself as you really want to be is to break the walls you built around yourself and as wall I mean beliefs.

I explain myself here: ANTs come from contradictions in your head i.e. opposites thoughts than your own inserted in your head by someone else words/behaviour.

(07-30-2015 04:15 PM)amusedmastery Wrote:  

There's a lot you can do:
3. Figure out the root cause of your stress and deal with it. This is key.

Identifie those contradicting thoughts and then act to crush them, Tricks & techniques are good to a certain extent but they are only ways to avoid disagreements resulting from confrontations with the real world (Emotional Pain)

(07-30-2015 04:15 PM)amusedmastery Wrote:  

I work in outside sales and used to feel the adrenaline when I was about to make a field call. I kept doing it until I conquered the fear.

Breaking through the Walls[b], it'll be really painful for some, just easy as fuck for others.

Rejection can crush your heart if you already try to fuck beautiful women, taking your balls and investing your saving in a business that you don't know where it will lead your life, asking for a raise can be as hard as jumping from a plane [b]but doing it countless time will numb the disagreeable feelings and let you enjoy only the rewards and even the slightest reward worth the fight.

Excellent points from amusedmastery, thanks to him.

[Aussie_Thinker]

I'm going to be bookmarking this thread. Lots of helpful info.

I'm in practically the same boat as the OP. 21 year old who suffers from social anxiety (you can guess what my love life is like).

Helpful tips that I've found:

1. If you're worried about not having a skill/knowledge, study your ass off on it. I have trouble talking to girls (and people in general). Studying game has helped me to start to branch out, talk to people more, be more confident, etc. Mind you, still can't approach a girl, but I have made big strides. Not that long ago I couldn't/wouldn't talk to more than a few people at my work. Now I try and talk to most.

2. If you're beating yourself up over things you have done in the past, use a simple reframe. Instead of saying "I should have done X", say "I could have, but didn't do X". It does work, trust me.

3. Realize that you're holding yourself back. You think you 'can't' go talk to that girl? Wrong. You just won't.

[DonnyGately]

(07-30-2015 10:57 AM)RexImperator Wrote:  

One of the hardest things about mindfulness is to do it without self judgement. If you judge yourself harshly (a form of resistance to what is) it undermines the whole thing.

Accepting that you feel some anxiety will make you less anxious.

This x1000.

Mindfulness has been great for me.