<p>to riff on some responses </p>
<p>To stay in the moments - ask yourself - what does God (or destiny, if you prefer) want from me right now - whats my duty at THIS moment - my dharma, as the buddists (hindus?) put it. helps focusing.</p>
<p>Ekhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. Teaches you how to follow your thinking and stay in the moment. Not for nothing is this one very popular book - you are not alone! </p>
<p>Anxiety is a big menopause symptom for me. If you get in the habit of following your thoughts, you find that you go down the same road over and over and over again. You can break the habit once you become conscious of the habit - once you watch the same string of thoughts repeating continuously. Eventually you figure out that your 1000 worries are really the same thoughts cycling over and over again 1000 times a day.</p>
<p>Also - you can follow the worry to its logical endpoint - what is the absolute worst thing that can possibly happen if your worry comes true. There it is. Ok others have had this happen and have dealt with it when it did. Sometimes when I go here I have to allow myself the thought that eventually, we all die and so no pain, No pain, will last forever. Weird line of logic but it’s true, right?</p>
<p>Crossposted with BBD. Love that Shakespeare!</p>
<p>Read this article about Generalized Anxiety Disorder. </p>
<p>[NIMH</a> · Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)](<a href=“http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/generalized-anxiety-disorder-gad/index.shtml]NIMH”>NIMH » Anxiety Disorders)</p>
<p>If it describes you, you will benefit greatly form CBT and, perhaps, medication. It is a very common form of anxiety. The “generalized” part means that your anxiety moves from one obsessive thought to another over time but rarely goes away. It does not mean a general state of anxiety (although that may be present).
If you do not have GAD, a visit with a mental health professional is still a very good idea so that you can see where your feelings are stemming from. You don’t have to feel this way.</p>
<p>This is going to sound really bizarre, but I have found that if I am losing sleep over something and can not stop worrying about it, I will say to my husband, “I can’t worry about this anymore. I am losing sleep and I am getting headaches. Can I pass my worry off to you?” I explain what is bothering me and he agrees (although I know he just CAN’T worry as well as I can), but for some crazy reason, it seems to work for me. Can anyone explain why this works?</p>
<p>Here is my guess as to why it works. Worry is a manifestation of our need to control things. We stay “hyper alert” and vigilant because we feel that if we are not vigilant and let our guard down, the thing that we are worrying about will happen. When you give your worry over to your husband, you are allowing yourself to stop worrying because you think that HE is being vigilant now. It’s like asking someone that you trust to babysit. Your putting your worry in good hands but you are not really letting it go.</p>
<p>Different stuff works for different people but many people can’t find any device on their own that relieves their worrisome thoughts. Intense worry can also accompany depression so checking in with a mental health professional is really good advice.</p>
<p>No amount of rationalizing can talk me out of one of my “worrying moments”. Here is what I was told to do and and silly as it sounds, it does help.</p>
<p>As soon as I start to worry, I am supposed to immediately play one of those mindless games on my phone or on the computer. This is not something I normally do so A) it takes all of my concentration and B) I don’t really enjoy it so there is a minimal risk that it could become an undesirable habit.</p>
<p>questbest, I’m starting to “worry” about YOU. Please seek professional help. You truly do not have to iive this way.</p>
<p>Kajon, as an aside: they are actually working with mindless video games and finding it greatly increases the ability of those with PTSD to fall asleep at night. fwiw</p>
<p>I recognized myself in the OP. So here goes: if a lot of the worries are about a child who’s away in college, try asking the child for more information. I’ve been finding myself worrying an awful lot about child #2. This isn’t a new problem, and the worry isn’t without cause. But I almost never worried about child #1. In addition to the legitimate reasons for that (he was a more responsible and mature kid at that age), I’ve realized that child #2 is a bit of an information controller. I think she likes the power of being vague, and keeping me somewhat hanging and wondering. So if she said she was gaining weight in just such a vague way as that, I wouldn’t know if that meant 3 pounds or 20 pounds, so I’d worry. “I didn’t do well on my final” could mean a C (which wouldn’t be worth too much worry) or an F, and I wouldn’t know, so I’d worry. I have now started to demand more information. She doesn’t always comply and sometimes I get a stubborn, repeated “I don’t know,” but when she does expand on the issue, I see that a lot of the time the worry was unnecessary because my assumptions were off.</p>
<p>CBT and, for some people, medication.</p>
<p>For the most part, I can handle my worry/anxiety but sometimes I need to take a pill to calm me down enough so that I can do the CBT stuff. It only happens a few times a year but what a different it makes. </p>
<p>Sometimes I really wish I had faith in a higher power, someone or something to turn worries over too but I just don’t. Goodness knows I tried for a long time.</p>
<p>I recently heard something interesting about worry; a woman I know nearly lost her child in an accident but her child lived. She says it’s so tempting to get lost in the “what ifs” and who could blame her? But she said she feels it’s disrespectful to those who are truly suffering to live in the “what ifs.” In other words, worry is a luxury that we indulge in because we are not in crisis at the moment.</p>
<p>Oh pugmadkate, you have touched a nerve! I too wish that I could believe and give over power to a higher source, but I just don’t believe. Anybody have ideas to help me believe?</p>
<p>I also can resonate with the idea that we worry when we don’t have anything disastrous happening…but sometimes I worry in the midst of something disastrous happening!</p>
<p>questbest- I think that CBT could be very helpful. If you are hesitant about it, you might find that reading “Feeling Good” by David Burns gives you a sense of what it entails. (I am NOT recommending just using the book- only that it will give you a sense of what thought processes may be involved here). </p>
<p>As for “believing”- I am a believer, myself, but that doesn’t always make it easy to “hand over” my worries to God. Grace builds on nature, but not without a lot of hard work on our part.</p>
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<p>My therapist uses the David Burns books to teach CBT. Burns has some good workbooks but I found I wasn’t able to apply it consistently and well until I started practicing it in weekly therapy.</p>
<p>A friend of mine told me that she’s not so sure about a spiritual higher power, but she does seek Good Orderly Direction (GOD) to help her during times of stress and worry.</p>
<p>Questbeast, if you don’t believe, don’t worry about it. 
You can still decide to go with the flow or be at peace with what is, without attributing a personality to the universe or whatever is beyond it, if there is anything.</p>
<p>Cognitive Behavior Therapy is really just a determined effort to re-write your mental scripts. You get to choose what you think instead of re-playing what was written in your head throughout your childhood and reinforced as you went along. It is very, very practical and useful for a number of problems people have with worry, mild depression, etc.</p>
<p>I can related to the topic too. I worry but not to the extreme and not all the time. It seems that it goes up and then I go back to normal. After many years Ive realized that that my worries go up when I face uncertain situations. My solution? I don’t have one yet. Meditation helped me, but got really busy nd stopped. The CBT sounds like something I’d like to try. Any ideas how to find a good therapist?
(hope my post is readable… I’m using my iPhone)</p>