When I’m distressed or anxious I find myself in these endless trains of thought. Just stuck in a loop. What helps you break free? I try to come back to reality, or use some coping techniques like breathing, but I’d love to hear what works for you.
I find distractions. Short form videos. Videogames. Music.
Have to bait my mind away from how breathtakingly fucked everything is like a dog after a piece of cheese.
Sometimes that’s all we can do! Speaking of cheese, I hate that one of my distractions is food haha
Weed. Unfortunately. Not the greatest coping mechanism in terms of money and physical health. But better than hard drugs or alcohol, I suppose.
If it works and you are doing it in a healthy manner then that’s all that counts! I did it for years to help get me through the day but it is expensive and takes a toll on your body. Sometimes you have to take those little deserts to break free though.
Weed rules
It’s medicine to me. It literally “fixes” 99% of what I’m suffering from. But all I ever get from people is “you’re just an addict”. They’re probably right, in the same way a diabetic is an “insulin addict”.
Sometimes I have to find an exit. Come to the conclusion that looping isn’t helping. Mentally take the thoughts and put them in a bag and set it down and walk away.
Understand that you are ruminating is the first step. Some people write it down. Sometimes distract with exercise or a simple walk.
Find out what works for you from all the advice in this post thread, many people have some good advice.
I don’t always have it in me to execute on my own advice, but going for a run genuinely helps. Since leaving the house is a challenge in itself for me I bought a treadmill, and it was such a good decision. Reducing the friction between impulse and actually running was key for me, it’s so easy now to just stumble onto the treadmill and get going, and I don’t have to think about leaving the house or planning a route or meeting people or anything.
Concentrating on my breathing helps a lot, along with simple distractions.
The big help, though, was anti anxiety drugs. It was amazing, after being at war with my brain for most of my life. It was like - I’d have a bad thought, feel it in my gut, try a distraction, have it fail, have the thought again, on and on until i genuinely broke out or my emotions escalated to panic and it stopped in the post panic numbness.
With the medicine, the physical reaction petered out. I was able to use other methods like thinking “ok, so you fucked up then. you were a child. you deserved compassion from the adults around you” etc and was actually able to let go and move on.
I limit my social media and filter subjects that stress me out on what little I do use. I also uninstalled news apps I used to use. Not a full solution, but it helped me. Other more personal issues that bothered me took time. Lots of time. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
Great advice. And thanks! Feeling pretty good for the most part but it is interesting how the news or something in my social circle can destabilize me. You have some good advice in how to limit those triggers.
I did that fairly often when I was younger, but kind of grew out of it. I don’t think it’s bad in and of itself, but it can be disruptive or distracting, and lead to bad upsets as well as good insights.
Here’s a method that is supposed to help get out of it, if that’s what you want:
https://aeon.co/ideas/why-speaking-to-yourself-in-the-third-person-makes-you-wiser
Illeism is powerful stuff. Helps with building perspective.
On my worst and most uncertain days, I write down how I feel, what I did today and anything else on my mind in a journal. That way I express the thoughts in my head, and then knowing that they are there means I don’t have to keep agonizing all the whatifs, worries and bad thoughts in there and can set them aside.
