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How To Stop Feeling Anxious With These Amazing Anxiety Management Techniques

Anxiety is a crippling and dreadful mental ailment. It can affect every aspect of your life, including your mind, body, and behavior. It can become so crippling that you can’t enjoy your daily life. If not careful, physical symptoms can become so severe that you can experience a racing heart, muscle tension, sweating, dizziness, and shortness of breath. As a matter of fact, these anxious feelings can occur unexpectedly and cause great distress.

Because of this severe mental impairment, it will behoove you to take action to regain your quality of life. Certain methods should be taken in addition to getting therapy in which the professional may or may not put you on a prescription. These methods implement regular self-care and relaxation to prevent or eliminate all the terrible symptoms of being anxious.

Amazing Anxiety Management Techniques to Stop Feeling Anxious

These anxiety management methods are as follows:

1. Breathe deeply

One of the first things to do to deal with anxiety is to take a deep breath. Deep diaphragmatic breathing is powerful because the body’s relaxation response is activated. The body will go from the sympathetic nervous system’s fight-or-flight response to the parasympathetic nervous system’s relaxed response which produces a sense of grounding, being relaxed, and calm. Conscious deep breathing should be practiced for a minute each time it’s implemented. Also, you should practice this a few times a day, or whenever you think about it.

2. Accepting the fact that you’re anxious

keep in mind that anxiety is only a feeling like any feeling. When you do this, you can begin to accept it. Acceptance is crucial because attempting to eliminate or wrangle anxiety often gets worse. To accept it doesn’t mean you have to resign to a miserable experience or like it. You would just benefit from accepting the reality of it.

anxious

3. Be mindful

You can have a state of calm and reduce the feelings of anxiety by being aware of your surroundings and your body in a non-judgemental way. First, close your eyes while observing your breathing. Then, shift your awareness to what you can smell, touch, and hear. You then must shift your awareness back and forth several times from your body to your surroundings.

4. Utilizing cues to relax

Being aware of your body becoming tensed or feeling like you can’t let go of stress or worry can be used as cues to initiate more regular relaxation. Regular relaxation can include the tightening and releasing of different muscle groups. While doing this, imagine the flowing outward of tension away from your body while breathing out. As you breathe in, imagine the tension being replaced with energy, warmth, and peace. You should also schedule enjoyable and relaxing activities on a regular basis, such as warm baths, massages, exercise, or being in nature.

5. Be realistic

When it comes to being anxious, people tend to think of the worse possible outcome of a situation which increases fear and anxiety. However, to deal with anxious mind, you must remind yourself that it’s just feelings and not facts. Use logic and try to think of a less catastrophic outcome or conclusion. If needed, ask others to help you think of a better outcome. Also, write down the better response as a reminder in the future. You should also recall past times when your worries proved to be false.

6. Disrupt anxious thinking

Sometimes it’s hard to use logical thinking to try to deal with anxious mind. When this happens, temporary disruptions of these anxious thoughts can assist you in accessing your logic and choosing what you’ll prefer to focus on. You can try some silly or different ways to interrupt the negativity, like singing your concerns to a silly tune, speaking your worries in a funny cartoon voice, focus or imagine on a pleasant thought, listening to an audio book or music, or intentionally reverting your attention back to a task you were working on.

7. Contain the worrying

Another technique to use when worrying is hard to manage, consumes your thinking, and distracting you from daily tasks is to initiate ways to limit the worrying and allow yourself to take a break. You must determine whether your worrying can be solved or is out of your control. You must also utilize problem-solving to focus on what you can solve. This is done by clearly identifying the problem, brainstorming the possible solutions, utilizing the advantages and disadvantages to decide the best solution, and create an action plan to address the issue.

For worries you can’t solve, you must implement relaxation and other techniques to eliminate your negative reaction to the situation. You can worry well only one time. Also, using a worrying journal or diary to list the concerns for up to twenty minutes per day helps. So, when those worries re-occur, you can remind yourself that worrying about that has already been done for that day.

anxious

Final Thoughts on Beating Anxious Feelings

Anxiety is nothing to play around with. Deal with this situationhead on to gain normality and peace of mind, body, and soul.  In turn, ou will reclaim a whole and healthy quality of life.

To deal with anxious feelings, utilizing these techniques listed above will go a long way, but it takes determination and patience for the full effectiveness of these techniques. In applying regular self-care with taking regularly planned breaks, maintaining a good sleep routine, and performing relaxing activities, you will be on your way to a better you.

How To Let Go Of Painful Feelings And The Past

While you may feel like your path to healing requires you to focus on your pain–this couldn’t be further from the truth. When it comes to your past and how you’ve been hurt before, the best and healthiest thing that you can do now is to let go.

Here are Some Ways to Let Go of Past Pain

“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is, therefore, the means for correcting our misperceptions.” -Gerald Jampolsky

While trying to let go may seem like the hardest thing to do, it is what will set you free from the pain that you are feeling. Holding on to the pain of the past will only keep you bonded to your pain, unable to feel happiness or joy. If you hope to be free of the past but aren’t sure how to begin, read these six tips to let go and let goodness into your life again.

1. Understand the Difference Between Expectations and Reality in Your Relationships

We all have certain idealistic expectations for our lives and the people that we connect with. However, life will never be exactly what we thought it would be, so let go of those expectations. We have to accept ourselves and others in our lives the way they are.

The first step is to be aware of how you are and the role you play in relationships. In the same vein, you need to accept the truths about the people that are in your life. Exercise appreciation for them and be grateful they are in your life, exactly the way they are.

love quotes

2. Respond Rationally to Unexpected Outcomes

Whatever expectation or hope we have for the future, life has a funny way of doing the opposite. When life offers us different outcomes than we hoped for, we have to respond in a rational way. This can mean setting up boundaries between yourself and others, as well as let go of people we can no longer accommodate in our lives.

3. Self Limiting Beliefs are Brought on by Ourselves

Oftentimes, the only thing holding us back from accomplishing our dreams is ourselves. When you think, “I could never achieve that” or “that’s impossible for me”, you are the only one holding yourself down.

Now is the time to let go of past self-doubt and start believing in yourself. While other people may come into your life sharing their own limiting beliefs, be the voice of truth and reason, showing the world and yourself that you can do anything you want to.

4. Understand that you Can’t Control Other People

The only thing you can control is yourself and the way you respond to things. While you may wish that you had the power to control how others treat you, everyone else can only be responsible for their own actions. While this can be frustrating at times, it allows you the freedom to truly focus on being the person that you want to be.

5. Focus on How You Think About Yourself

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Focusing on what others think about you is the fastest way to an unhappy life. Allow yourself to be free of other people’s opinions of you and your life. Be happy and at peace with yourself without looking to receive approval from others.

6. Allow Room for Mistakes

Mistakes and failures are part of the human condition. We all make mistakes, don’t beat yourself up about them. Learn to accept what happened and move on without obsessing over it or worrying about it.

A Work in Progress

We are all works in progress. Letting go may spur painful or awkward feelings.

Taking time to let go and heal is apart of this process. By allowing yourself to live free of the pain and embarrassment of the past, you’ll be able to be open to the joy and hope that the future holds.

Use these six tips to let go as a guide to keep you focused on this journey. Remember to love yourself and strive to be the best version of “you” that you can be. Negativity will always exist in the world, but as you work to understand yourself more, you’ll be able to outshine the negative with the light of your positive self-love.

How to Lose Weight In 3 Days On A Sugar Detox

A sugar detox can help you lose weight pretty quickly because many foods that have a lot of sugar ALSO have a ton of calories. Therefore, when you eliminate things such as sodas, cakes, ice cream, and most processed foods from your diet, you should see some weight loss. However, you must remain in a caloric deficit to lose weight, and this becomes much easier when you don’t eat high-calorie sugary treats. Aside from weight gain, sugar can cause many other health problems.

According to a study published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), excess sugar can even lead to an early death. The study showed how sugar can cause cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. The study also demonstrated how a sugar detox and adopting a low-sugar diet as a lifestyle choice can lead to better overall health.

Another study by the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that increased consumption of sugary beverages is associated with obesity in children. This shows the danger of consuming sugar when it’s extracted and put into foods unnaturally.

In this article, we will help you learn how to detox from sugar once and for all and drop weight in a short amount of time. You don’t have to spend hours in the gym to lose weight; you need to primarily focus on your diet when it comes to weight loss.

Here’s how to detox from sugar and lose weight in as little as 3 days:

First of all, let’s talk about what your diet should primarily consist of. To lose weight, you need to decrease your calories while still eating foods that satiate you. How do you do this? Eat foods with the most nutrients possible so that you get full easier. Most fast foods and processed foods do exactly the opposite of what we want for weight loss; they have a lot of calories, but very few nutrients.

So, you’ll want to eat things like leafy greens and other low-sugar vegetables. You should also consume nuts, seeds, low-sugar fruits such as berries, lean and/or fatty meats depending on your preference, and whole grains in small portions. You can also eat dairy products if you wish, but try to purchase varieties without fillers that might have hidden sugars.

Anytime you crave sugar, opt for some fresh fruit instead. It will satisfy your sweet tooth without the nasty side effects that you may experience with processed and refined sugar.

On your journey to detox from sugar, you’ll also need to check labels quite religiously. Processed foods usually contain added sugar to make it more satisfying for the customer. Remember, food companies don’t really care about consumers’ health (most of the time). They care mostly about lining their pockets. So, the responsibility falls on us as consumers to check labels for ingredients that will only do us harm, like added sugars. Salad dressings, sauces, and even some “health” foods like granola bars can contain a ridiculous amount of sugar. ALWAYS check the label before you buy something.

Now that we’ve given you some tips on what you can eat and what you should look out for when grocery shopping, let’s talk about specific meals you can eat that will promote weight loss.

3-Day Sugar Detox Weight-Loss Plan

Day 1

Breakfast: 1/2 cup of oatmeal with nuts/seeds/berries and three eggs (scrambled or boiled).

Morning snack: 1 serving of nuts.

Lunch: Chicken thigh with a serving of leafy greens and sweet potatoes.

Dinner: Salmon with two or three more servings of green vegetables.

Day 2

Breakfast: Same breakfast as above, and you can add a couple slices of bacon if you wish.

Morning snack: A small bowl of nuts and a serving of berries.

Lunch: A big green salad tossed in olive oil and lemon juice as a dressing. Add whatever low-starch veggies that you wish.

Dinner: Roasted veggies such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and sweet potatoes with a bowl of chicken noodle soup.sugar

Day 3

Breakfast: Spinach omelet with full-fat cheese and two slices of bacon.

Morning snack: A serving of berries.

Lunch: Salmon with a serving of greens.

Dinner: Zucchini pasta with red sauce, mushrooms, broccoli, ground beef, and cheese.

As far as liquids, make sure you keep them in mind during your sugar detox. Eliminate all drinks with added sugar like soda and energy drinks. Instead, consume plain water or water with cut up lemon, herbal tea, or unsweetened coffee.

https://youtu.be/yG-G9_LOkLA

(C)Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved
References:
https://www.livestrong.com/article/457351-how-much-fruit-should-be-eaten-by-diabetics/
https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20130114/sugar-excess-weight – 1
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/eating-too-much-added-sugar-increases-the-risk-of-dying-with-heart-disease-201402067021
http://www.who.int/elena/titles/ssbs_childhood_obesity/en/

10 Tips to Learn to Love Yourself

You may think that loving yourself is selfish. That isn’t the case at all! A healthy dose of self-love improves your life in many different ways. It enhances the quality of the relationships you have with other people because your unique set of needs are being met.

If you were to refer to quotes about loving yourself, you’d quickly find out that many people advocate for this type of self-care. If you want to improve your mental health, engage in some self-love today.

The following list of ten tips will help you learn about loving yourself.

Tip #1: Be Proud of Who You Are Today.

No matter what you’ve experienced in life up to this point, be proud of how far you’ve come. Being able to weather life’s storms is a victorious feat. Your experiences have shaped who you are today. Be proud of all that you’ve overcome and prepare to buckle in tight for the next wild ride. Every experience makes you stronger and ultimately more you.

proud quote

Tip #2: Develop an Attitude of Gratitude.

When you start to see how truly blessed you are, something magical happens inside of you. You’re able to deal with life’s difficulties in a completely different way. You have a different perspective than you did before. You know that you have many of the things needed to help overcome the challenges you face and that allows you to recover from difficult situations quickly.

Tip #3: Give Yourself Respect.

Don’t do things you don’t want to do for the sake of fitting in. Stay true to who you are as a person and the values you have. If someone insists that you engage in behavior or take on obligations that don’t work well for you, politely turn them down. It’s better to take good care of your soul than people please.

Tip #4: Limit the Amount of Time You Spend on Social Media.

It can be easy to get caught up in the illusion of the picture-perfect life via social media. After all, Instagram accounts are carefully curated to show you only the most breathtaking views, masterful yoga moves, delicious baked goods, and toned and fit bodies. Do yourself a favor and take a break from all things digital. Take the time to reconnect with yourself. What did you like to do before Facebook entered your world? When was the last time you went outdoors and immersed yourself in nature? Check out, so you can do an inner health check.

Tip #5: Loving Yourself Means You’re Really Honest with Yourself and Others.

Being aware of the patterns that harm you is a good place to start. Checking in with yourself emotionally to make sure that you’re not self-medicating by gambling, drinking, shopping or overeating is key. Knowing who and what triggers your behaviors helps you take a stance against the negativity. You’re able to confront the friend that constantly complains that your life isn’t as busy, difficult or even happy as theirs. You’re able to adopt coping strategies that allow you to love yourself just as you are even when it’s not your idea of perfect.

Tip #6: Embrace Your Spiritual Side.

You don’t need to be religious to be spiritual. In fact, many of the top self-love advocates teach from a place of inner peace, not religious knowledge. They know what feels right for them and aren’t afraid to explore spirituality in many different ways. Loving yourself means breaking barriers and letting down guards. It’s about embracing the beautiful potentiality of life as well as things explained and unexplained.

Tip #7: Trust Your Gut.

To love yourself, you must listen to your intuition. It seldom gets things wrong. If you feel a twinge of uneasiness about a person or situation, ask why. Sometimes, you’re all wrong, but many times, you’ll find that your gut has got it right. Write down the occasions where your intuition kept you out of harm’s way. You’ll start to see patterns evolving that you can use to warn yourself in the future.

Tip #8: Accentuate the Positive.

When something goes right in your life, celebrate. Life is an adventure that only you can navigate. By rewarding yourself for doing the things you’ve set out to do, you’re telling your brain that you matter. Besides, you’ll have a lot of fun planning your treats in the process. Focus on these moments and allow them to get you through the tough stuff.

Tip #9: Don’t Be Afraid to Laugh Your Face Off.

Stop taking yourself so seriously! It’s okay to laugh at your mistakes. Part of being able to move past challenges requires you to see the value in their lessons. Even if you did something totally embarrassing, laugh it off. It gives you the courage to try it all over again.

Tip #10: Share Your Love with Others.

When you’re truly loving yourself, you love others deeply. You’re better capable of fulfilling their needs because your own needs are being met. You can give more of yourself because the proverbial well is full, not empty. The quality of the relationship you have with yourself plays a big role in the relationships you have with others.

There are many ways to love yourself as illustrated above. You can recite quotes about loving yourself or engage in daily acts of self-care. You can evict the critic from your head and start a gratitude journal that allows you to account for all the blessings you have in your life.

No matter what you choose to do, know that loving yourself is among the best gifts you can give yourself. After all, there is no one that you’re stuck with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, right? Even if there was, you’d be a better son, daughter, partner, friend, and parent because of your desire to be kind and loving to yourself no matter what transpires in your life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnJLrAQrzjw

(C)Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved
REFERENCES:
HTTPS://TINYBUDDHA.COM/BLOG/21-TIPS-TO-RELEASE-SELF-NEGLECT-AND-LOVE-YOURSELF-IN-ACTION/
HTTPS://WWW.HUFFINGTONPOST.COM/ANDREW-MERLE/HOW-TO-HAVE-AN-ATTITUDE-OF-GRATITUDE_B_8644102.HTML

Why I Stopped Chasing Happiness And started Enjoying My Not So Perfect Life

As the Buddha once said, “If you want to be happy, be.” Have you ever set goals and obsessed over making them the center of your universe? You may have even arranged everything else around these goals? However, what happens after you’ve accomplished your goal? Throughout our lives, we live on a perpetual hamster wheel. Many times we measure our level of happiness based on our achievements. Unfortunately, even after we have accomplished something, we start to adapt to it, and it becomes the norm. This is known as hedonic adaptation. That is to say, once you’ve achieved a goal, your happiness levels quickly return back to the normal level.

Why I Stopped Chasing Happiness and Started Enjoying Life Instead

Your Life Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

One of the happiness tips that you might learn from would be if you were to stop looking at life like a mouse trying to always get the cheese. Instead, you might learn how to enjoy the journey to achieve happiness along the way. As the Stoic sage Epictetus once said, “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Basically, this means that if you’re unhappy, it has less to do with your achievements and more to do with how you interpret these things. Instead of putting off your chance to enjoy life now, why not find an activity that you enjoy doing and make it habit to do it at least once a day. This can have a big impact on your happiness levels.

life quote

Why You Shouldn’t Measure Your Happiness Based on Achievement

The biggest problem with trying to enjoy your life based on achievement is how you’re only living for a single endpoint. You don’t live for every single moment, but instead, you find yourself trying to live for a small moment in time. This leaves you with little time to actually feel happy. Over the next couple days, you might stop setting a goal of where you try to achieve your goals. Instead, pay more attention to what you feel in the moment. You might even take time out of your day to think of your life and everything in it. In fact, you might come to a painful realization of how not only did you enjoy your life more this way, you experienced many more happy moments in the process.

Another one of the problems of looking at achievement as your measurement of happiness is how you tend to look down on others who haven’t achieved as much. This is not a characteristic that you want to emphasize in yourself.

Never Forget the Biggest Goal in Life

In truth, everyone wants to be happy. They probably don’t even actually want anything else if they had the real choice for engineering their enjoyment of life. You may have even set short-term or long-term goals that interfere with and control your emotions because you didn’t achieve them. To achieve happiness, that should be considered one of the highest goals that you could aspire to do.

Be There with Your Loved One

One of the biggest tragedies is how as you’ve set goals and tried to achieve the perfect life, you often forget to be present with your family and friends and have a good time. Maybe even the reason you wanted to achieve more was so that you could spend more time with them. However, the terrible irony of it is that as you’re trying to do this, you find yourself spending less time with your family. When you stop chasing the perfect life, you can be present and enjoy what you have available to you now. Based on a Gallup poll, you need between six to seven hours of socializing daily to feel happy.

Some People Even Damage Their Health

Perhaps you have grown overly fixated on achieving a specific goal. You may ignore the classic symptoms of being overstressed and tired because you want to achieve something. In the long term, this can have serious negative consequences. In fact, the Japanese have even coined term titled “Karoshi” for when people overwork themselves to death. It has become so common in this country that they now even have a word for it. In chasing after achievement, they forget to have happiness in the present, which wastes a large portion of their lives.

Hopefully, these happiness tips have made you understand how you don’t need the perfect life to start feeling more positive. In fact, all that you need to do is be here in the now and enjoy what you have. You can determine what activities you enjoy the most based on what you feel as you’re doing them. Happify has said that most people can control their positive emotions. Most of the research has found that it often revolves around hedonic adaptation.

18 Signs Someone Has Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A person with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is described as conceited, in need of consistent approval, and having no regard for anyone’s feelings but their own. In addition, they feel superior to others and expect everyone else to comply with their demands. Males are more likely to suffer from the condition than females.

People who display narcissistic attitudes try to portray themselves as having high self-esteem. Deep down, however, they aren’t as confident as they seem. This is evident as those with NPD have a hard time handling any sort of criticism. They usually respond to perceived slights with anger or even violence. They can also feel shame and humiliation when they don’t get the praise they expect.

Symptoms

A person with a narcissistic personality tends to exhibit the following thoughts and/or behaviors:

  • A magnified sense of self-importance
  • Constantly seeking attention and commendation
  • Lack of valuing the feelings or opinions of others
  • Feelings of superiority
  • A believe they should only associate with high-status people, or whoever they feel shares the same league as them
  • Demanding perfection from others
  • The opinion that others should comply with their expectations
  • Extreme sensitivity to criticism
  • A strong sense of entitlement
  • Putting others down to lift themselves up
  • Exaggerating their accomplishments and talents
  • A need for special treatment
  • Envy toward others, and the belief that others are envious of them
  • Exploiting others for their personal gain
  • Obsessive thoughts about power, success, intelligence, physical attractiveness, and romantic relationships
  • Excessive competitiveness
  • A deep-rooted inferiority complex
  • Expressions of ego

People diagnosed with this disorder also lack emotional stability. They often manifest a short-temper, and likely suffer from depression. Additionally, they expect others to match their level of perfection. They have such high standards that it’s difficult for them to maintain relationships. This can also affect work environments. A narcissistic employee often sets unrealistic boundaries for themselves and their co-workers.

Other signs of NPD include substance abuse, constant mood swings, and social isolation.

Causes

Many believe the disorder often develops from childhood experiences. In some cases, the adolescent was exposed to narcissistic behaviors by a parent. Children raised by parents whom exhibit narcissistic personality traits are likely to suffer from:

  • Neglect
  • Low self-esteem
  • Excessive self-consciousness
  • Depression, angst, and anxiety
  • Inferiority complex
  • Verbal and physical abuse
  • Timidity
  • Inability to accept love

On the other hand, parents can also encourage narcissistic behavior by overpraising their child.

Diagnosis

In order to give a diagnosis, the mental health professional must verify if the individual meets five or more of the criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5). The professional will ask a series of questions on the individual’s behavior and thought patterns. The professional will also conduct a physical exam to detect if any physical issues are causing the concerning symptoms.

Final Thoughts

There is no official medication for treating narcissistic personality disorder. On top of that, many patients are reluctant to admit they suffer from the condition. If they don’t get the help they need, their narcissistic behaviors will continue to affect them and their loved ones.

Psychotherapy is the primary method of treatment for people with NPD. The process is slow; however, patience is a virtue. Long-term psychotherapy will give patients an opportunity to reevaluate their mindsets and behaviors. In addition, it can help them learn how to deal with their problems more effectively. If you are the loved one of a person with the disorder, the best thing you can do is offer support. You can encourage them to seek treatment by explaining the benefits of seeing a therapist. Reprimanding NPD sufferers about their problems can provoke more opposition to receiving help.

By receiving professional help, NPD patients take steps towards happy, fulfilling lives. The goal is for them to become better people overall, capable of building healthy relationships with others. Building positive self-esteem is key to their ability to build a bright future. However, they must also learn that practicing humility brings benefits, especially in maintaining positive relationships.

Signs of a narcissistic partner

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