Fighting anxiety is futile. So do the opposite instead.

[Jeff1943]

How long have you been fighting anxiety? Has fighting it worked? Did it help you recover? 'No!' I think I hear you reply.

To solve most problems the natural human response is to fight. But anxiety is the one exception. Anxiety is caused by too much stress and tension, your nerves eventually respond by becoming over-sensitised and causing all sorts of symptomatic mayhem.

The trouble with fighting is that it causes stress and tension, the very things that made you ill in the first place. Your nerves need less of all that, not more of it.

So maybe you should consider doing the opposite. Instead of fighting your anxiety accept it for the time being instead. Acceptance is passive, it doesn't cause stress and tension. So if you respond to all the symptoms of anxiety with utter acceptance your nerves start to recover. But it has to be genuine acceptance, not just 'putting up with'.

That leaves the problem of fear. Every time you experience your symptoms (whether it's health anxiety, social anxiety or general anxiety) you start pumping out fear hormones and these contribute to the over sensitisation of your nervous system. It becomes a non-stop roundabout of fear causing more symptoms causing more fear causing more symptoms...

If you can frame your mind towards passive acceptance of your symptoms you can overcome fear. Because you can't accept something and fear it at the same time.

True acceptance is a state of mind that takes time to develop. You know that anxiety cannot kill you, disable you or drive you mad. It's power is limited. The symptoms of heart disease, stomach cancer and brain tumour etc that you feel are all fake as numerous tests and scans always confirm. So although they're irritating and a nuisance they're not that important - unless you inflate their importance by stressing and obsessing over them.

You have to face the symptoms, accept them and pass right through them to recover.

Why spend your life being bullied and intimidated by a toothless paper tiger so lacking in substance that it doesn't even show up in a blood test or a MRI scan?

[Miss-P74]

♥️

[Indigojoe]

The lingering thought that always comes up for me, even when I "accept for now" is," OH what if {this} time it's different? Will this be the time, I'll faint, go blind, stroke, puke, turn into a purple people eater , etc."........

[Jeff1943 in reply to Indigojoe]

We often feel faint with anxiety but we very rarely faint. I don't know anybody who has. We may get visual disturbances but we very rarely go blind. I don't know anybody who has. People have strokes because they have high blood pressure and their arteries are too narrow. Very rarely is it caused by anxiety. We often feel nausea but very rarely puke. Not a single case of anyone turning into a purple people eater.

So the odds are stacked very heavily in your favour that these things won't happen to you. Nobody can ask for more than that.

[Indigojoe in reply to Jeff1943]

I get high marks for IMAGINATION!!!

[Summer1708]

Thank you.