Feel the anxiety vortex approaching? Mindfulness can help fend it off

September 10, 2024 Casey Sigler

Cognitive Chaos

If you’ve ever experienced even a short bout of anxiety or depression, you know the feeling of hopelessness and brain fog that comes with it. It’s hard to focus when you’re down. Your thoughts whirl out of control, picking up every worry or negative thought possible and sweeping them up in a tornado of mental and emotional chaos. The aftermath can mean both physical and mental depletion. Normal life can seem impossible and you might feel stuck in your brain, with all of its negative thinking habits.

The challenge of treating anxiety and depression is…how? Medication can be a valuable tool in managing depression, but it’s unlikely that it will ever be the silver bullet that alleviates all your depression symptoms. So if you’ve ever found yourself battling clinical depression, it’s important to have tools ready on hand that can help you cultivate mental calm. With the right tools you’ll feel more at ease, better prepared, and have some great resources to get you over any emotional hump, whether it be a depressive episode or just a terrible day.

The Weight of the World…

Being caught in depression is overwhelming and in that emotional state of overwhelm, it can be nearly impossible to have clarity of thought. Taking control of not just what you think but how you think it, can be incredibly helpful next time you feel depressed or even just stuck.

The practice of mindfulness has become quite a trend in the last several years. In our current era of smartphones, constant data streaming, and instantaneous news, it’s become very evident that the human body was never created to take in so much at once; to carry such a weight of information and emotion all hours of the day and night. So the idea of intentional solitude, practicing stillness, rest, and true thoughtfulness can be quite appealing to some, but intimidating to others. But regardless of how it strikes you, there is a multitude of research giving solid evidence that mindfulness does have a positive effect on anxiety, depression, and countless other ailments and challenges.

What It Means

“We’re capable of feeling safe this way, and safety allows our minds and bodies to rest and restore themselves.”

Mindfulness is simple, albeit profound. It simply means paying close attention to both internal and external experiences – in the moment they happen. We can’t walk around all day closely tuning in to our every heartbeat, the tension in our shoulders, or the sounds around us…we’d probably feel unhinged and we’d never be able to work, maintain a relationship or even laugh over a joke. But spending a few moments taking control of our thought life is an uplifting experience. It gives us a chance to experience our experiences without judgment, simply observing them as they come and go, as they affect our body, and roll around our minds. Giving ourselves permission to take in random thoughts and sensations without immediately deciding if they’re “good or bad” allows us freedom, encouragement, and presence of mind. It stops us in the tracks of negative cognitive behavior and can even change our neural pathways. We’re capable of feeling safe this way, and safety allows our minds and bodies to rest and restore themselves. Mindfulness is quite literally about breaking bad thought habits.

How To Practice

It may be ironic that a great many people practice mindfulness through apps on their smartphones, but that’s definitely one of the most convenient ways to get started! Dozens of mindfulness apps offer thousands of guided meditations that help you develop your own mindfulness practice, whether you’re looking to sleep better, deal with anxiety and depression, or simply improve your overall health. But it doesn’t take time with an expert or an app to teach yourself some good mindfulness techniques, nor do you have to devote much time to them at all.

Learning to calm your body and mind is a simple, small investment that will help you gain control of negative thoughts and create healthier patterns for your healing.

Put It Into Practice

Don’t let the word ‘mindfulness’ trip you up.

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There’s nothing magical or transcendent about taking the time to intentionally pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. Start small and don’t worry about spending a lot of time on your first practice.

Lie down somewhere comfortable. Your bed works great but a yoga mat in the grass works well too.
Close your eyes. As thoughts come and go, visualize them floating away on leaves in a river.
Starting with your head and moving all the way down to your toes, scan each body part for how it feels and any tension it’s carrying.
Release any tension as you notice it and then take three deep breaths to feel the moment itself.
Remind your body and mind that you’re safe and beloved.
End with a moment of gratitude.

Within a few moments, this simple mindfulness practice will leave you feeling encouraged and more relaxed. Well worth the effort.

Hope & Healing