How to overcome anxiety?

Anxiety arises from seeking "certainty" from "uncertainty".

When you focus your eyes on the "future" that has not happened and worry about a series of "uncertain" things happening, a series of emotions such as tension and fear will arise.

But life is unpredictable, and uncertainty is the essence of life.

To be honest, I am 30 years old, unmarried, and in the imperial capital.

No annual salary of a million, nor just off the plane, there are no hundreds of millions of projects in hand, the family did not demolition, no car, no house, no account, no object, know the bottom, not ashamed to be me.

The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you are getting into.

This trip to visit my family, I found: family members' anxiety index, "mourning" index, decreasing with age.

Grandma, born in 1940, is in good health and has tens of thousands of dollars in her hands.

My father, born in 1968, in today's language, is to achieve a class leap. I think he graduated from junior high school, as a native village boy, after some work, but also in the city to buy a house, car, later, the children also went to a good university, and after graduation, not at home to nibble, he is now in good health, but also continue to earn money, really congratulate!

But he is also anxious, sometimes sigh, lamenting that their lives are not worth it, but also often look at the indomitable daughter (me) and say to me: "Eh, Dad did not let you become a rich second generation.

I, born in 1990, was born in the spring breeze of reform and opening up, and grew up following my father's footsteps of earning money. However, after graduation, I intermittently anxious, but also regularly want to "lie flat", especially know that small B annual salary of 1 million, the age of small C promotion and salary increases to leave me behind, the circle of friends of small H big brand bags small watches, out of travel endless tour around the world to run ......

Even Zhang Erma in the next neighborhood is stronger than me, because this year just last month, she finished giving birth to three children, we are the same age.

Oh, grin naive smile.

In a host of family members, obviously living in better material conditions, more educated, and even surviving in the country's better times, I glorified the peak of anxiety.

Did I do something wrong?

No, anxiety is not the original sin of young people, but it follows us all in our work and life.

Face up to anxiety

From the root cause of anxiety, we can gain insight into one or two.

Since ancient times, it has been human nature to seek security and certainty. In the 14 million years of human evolution, anxiety is precisely a defense mechanism and survival instinct for protection purposes.

From a biological point of view, there is an almond-shaped brain structure at the bottom of the brain - the amygdala (also known as the amygdala). When the external environment changes, the amygdala goes to work.

First, information is received and translated into language that the brain can understand, informing the person to go on alert. If the security cannot be determined, the message chooses another path to put the person into unease. After further analysis, and still without a satisfactory answer, the amygdala sends out an alert, activating the inferior optic thalamus, the brainstem and the autonomic nervous system.

It can be said that the brain amplifies all uncertain dangers out of a protective mechanism.

For example, if we encounter a vicious dog outdoors, the brain automatically amplifies the horrific image of being bitten, producing severe pain, or even death, and through subconscious action, we stop in place to avoid triggering an active attack by the vicious dog.

However, there is a problem here: the brain cannot accurately distinguish between "real danger involving life and death" and "common challenges in life".

At this point, we need to consciously adjust our brain's "overprotection:"

Even a salted fish has a dream of turning over, let alone a human being, who is the spirit of all things.

"Certainty" and "possibility" cannot coexist. If you remove all "uncertainty", you lose all the opportunities that may arise in the future, and thus lose the "infinite possibility" to write a new chapter in your life.

Moderate anxiety is good for growth, all anxiety is because you want to become better, accept the reality, embrace change, do not miss the opportunity, life is much shorter than imagined.

After all, let you live a glance at the end of life, you will not be willing, it is too tasteless.

After realizing that anxiety is controllable or uncontrollable, the next step is to try to change the relationship between yourself and the objective.

Thinking in three dimensions of objective reality, please examine yourself.

① Life dreams (desires) are too high, too low

② Your own innate conditions (strengths, weaknesses)

③ The boundary of your own ability (status quo, expandable)

First of all, face your own anxiety, what are you anxious about?

Wang Xiaobo's quote: "All human suffering is essentially anger at one's own incompetence."

Not getting what you want, not satisfied with what you have now, seeking change and full of confusion set "super goals" beyond your own innate conditions and ability boundaries, then there are.

(I am dragging my feet in the era of income averaging one million per year)

Negativity and powerlessness towards the pursuit of life goals, thus.

(Life is not worth it, lying flat is good)

Faced with reality, I don't know what I should do, what I can do and what I can do.

(Why am I so useless? I can't even do the smallest things)

Individual situations vary, so it is recommended that you write down the anxiety you feel in your heart in the form of a case-by-case report, specific to the event, the more detailed the better, to see which type you belong to.

Common types of anxiety

I. Realistic anxiety

While specific events cause anxiety, neurotic anxiety is the worry about unknown dangers, arising from the perception of external dangers, once the danger is eliminated, the anxiety will then ease or disappear.

For example, appearance anxiety, fear of not being liked by the opposite sex, or poor economic environment, poor earning effect, excessive worry about losing one's job, lack of money and material things, and being looked down upon by the people around.

Catastrophic thinking spawns - excessive worrying.

Catastrophic thinking: confusing facts and imagination as one, and constantly developing one-way extrapolation with the worst mental guesses, thus drawing mind-boggling conclusions and generating great fear despair and worry.

Generally, this kind of thinking is often accompanied by the words "what if/what if ......? The words "what if/what if ? For example: "What if my boyfriend cheats on me? What if my child rebels against drugs?", "What if my child rebels against drugs?

How to fix "excessive worry"?

After identifying the anxious event, actively reversing anxiety-oriented thinking can alleviate or even gradually cure anxiety.

① Turn the description of uncertainty into a positive statement

For example, "What if my boyfriend cheated on me" → "I think my boyfriend cheated on me"

② Assess the real probability of the worried event occurring