Do you have any advice for times when you’re stressing about something to an irrational degree but can’t get rid of that little doomsday voice in the back of your head egging your stress on?
i DO have some advice for this, because despite my ~super chill vibe~ (lmao) this happens to me all the time. here is what i, personally do; it may not help you, and if it doesn’t, that’s okay. we all need different things.
go for a walk (or a run). i don’t mean like, walk around your office building a couple times, i mean put your headphones in and walk for a while. think whatever you want. don’t try not to think about the doomsday voice; let it have its moment while you’re walking. it’ll tire itself out.
if you don’t have time to do that, try to go to a quiet place. let yourself be anxious for a minute. ask yourself: okay. if X thing is true, what can i do about it? if the answer is, “nothing,” then maybe it’s the nihilist in me but often i’m able to be like, “ok then! guess i’ll die” and some of the anxiety fades. if there ARE steps i can take – send an email, make a spreadsheet, call my apartment building manager and ask them to check that i haven’t left the oven on – then i take those steps. it might not totally get rid of your anxiety but it does at least make me feel like i’ve done what i can do so i’m not just stewing in it.
write down every doomsday thought i’m having – maybe in an email to a friend, maybe just in a notebook if i don’t want to share. sometimes seeing them all written down is really helpful to me in the sense of like, reading them over and realizing that oh, those are real crazy thoughts i’m having. if they don’t immediately jump out as crazy, i take them one by one, with two columns. one column is “what evidence suggests this is true?” and the other is “what evidence suggests this is not true?” more often then not, by the end of the exercise my brain has calmed tf down.
this one FEELS really silly, and it only works for me if i’m having a kind of generalized anxiety that isn’t actually about anything in particular, but it DOES work. so i write something soothing (the phrase a therapist gave me once that i still use is “i am safe i am well i trust the process of life” but i’m pretty sure you could use any cheerful phrase you want) over and over and over again like jack nicholson in the shining. the key here is that i write it in cursive, without lifting my pen from the page. the repetitive and very soothing motions usually help a lot.
i hope these help!! and as always if this is a repeat problem for you and you aren’t already, consider seeing a therapist. i genuinely believe everyone in the world should see a therapist, even if you’re like, doing fine. good luck, bluebell! <3
