I don’t really have any advice, but what I can say is it’s not really about distracting myself or avoiding thoughts, it’s more like changing how I think about things. For example, when I get some random aches and pains, it worries me a little. But in the past I would fixate on things, try to treat them, see a doctor etc. After a certain amount of grappling with my own mortality, I kind of realized that sometimes my body will just hurt, and there’s nothing I can do about it, and so I have to sort of say, “ok, I have this pain, that’s fine,” and then just move on to whatever else I need to do. Although sometimes it may mean the opposite, accepting that I can’t just power through. “I’m just not going to be able to do all the things I wish I could do today, I need to rest instead. That’s fine.”
It’s still hard for me. But I think the biggest difference is that I have shifted my focus more towards the things that are here and now, and that I can actually control, and focusing attention on those things naturally means spending less time thinking about things that are far away or beyond my control. (Ie, applying attention elsewhere is not the same as distraction.)
Not super coherent, but I hope some part of that is helpful.
Written around 2000, it is surprising how many of his verses are relevant today. These are translations of the original, so have picked up some contemporary interpretation.
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."
"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
All this stuff really ignores some real advice that really works.
Anxiety comes from a lack of competence, confidence, or self-awareness. Lack any or all (and we all lack them to some extent) and you’re more nervous.
Get experience talking, presenting, comfort with how you look and sound, practice humor, gauge if you can maintain an audience. These are all practicable things. You can work on them.
I think meditation or mindfulness or any therapy tends to be good for realizing the importance of this, and perhaps some peripheral issues, but would never beat the cause of anxiety because the anxiety is rational. If someone asked me to fly a plane I’d be anxious - and that’s a good response, at a normal level, it means I’d have more cortisol and norepinephrine to react quicker and pay attention. But it’s not great for social things because it makes you shaky, so people see it as more of a fault than a good thing.
A lot of people today want to subscribe to “believe and you can” or “it’s all in your mind” type mantras but to me it’s really backwards to something like, “it’s ok that you can’t, accept it, and with hard work you can.”
> Anxiety comes from a lack of competence, confidence, or self-awareness.
This is oversimplified, anxiety isn’t just about social situations. My anxiety is none of these but comes from an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality.
I don’t feel like I’m going to die today or tomorrow, but the knowledge that I will die one day and wipe out all memory of me as I am now is permanently terrifying to me. I really believe that almost everyone else has some part of their brain to suppress this fact, that I am missing.
Is your point that there is no such thing as "me"? Because I've tried meditating on that thought and it hasn't really helped. I think, therefore I am after all.
It doesn't have to be rational. I get anxious doing the most trivial things that people do thousands of times every day: talking on the phone, going the supermarket, even sending emails. It is awful and seems to get worse (and less reasonable) the older I get.
Some of the most accomplished stand-up comics still struggle with anxiety. So being comfortable with presenting, humor, and maintaining an audience isn't necessarily sufficient.
I say try facing those issues. Your thinking mind is trying to process and make sense of those anxious issues. Example, if you were in an IED explosion in Iraq...it’s okay to think about it. It’s okay to process it. It’s okay to understand that it happened. But it’s also okay to understand that was a one-time thing and your body reacted the way it did to protect yourself from that one-time event. You may have lost some friends from that bad event, and you may have even been damaged from it. But that trauma is OVER. It’s time to heal through acceptance, talking about it verbally, and saying goodbye to those emotions.
This works well, as long as not you’re not still in Iraq at risk of getting hit with IEDs.
This oversimplifies things a little.
Many things can trigger your brain to react in a similar fashion than during a traumatic experience.
You can also be aware that the experience is not the same or unrelated, but you'll still get a panic attack. Most likely because the actual anxiety or panic is not caused by your thinking brain.
That’s a good observation, and I think the insight is that you still think these thoughts during the day, but you avoid fixating / worrying.
Like, if you are worried about an upcoming job interview, it’s natural that you’ll think about the interview during the day. However, those thoughts will appear and disappear. You are not trying to distract yourself and avoid the thoughts, you are just learning to avoid fixation/obsession/suffering.
One solution is to make it so you don’t need to worry about things. Keeping a maintained calendar, to-do list, or simply dumping responsibility for some things (e.g. selling a car) can help.
Any tips with doing this? The thoughts I try to avoid end up in my dreams even if I try my best to distract myself during the day