#Mindfulness and meditation for anxiety

[soldier-of-self]

How to Tell if Shortness of Breath is from Anxiety - Find Out Here!

Struggling to Catch Your Breath? Anxiety May Be the Culprit! Learn how to identify & cope with anxiety-induced shortness of breath in this comprehensive guide. Take back control of your breath! #AnxietyRelief #MentalHealthTips #BreatheEasy

If you’ve ever experienced that dreaded feeling of struggling to catch your breath, you’re not alone. Many of us face the overwhelming effects of anxiety on our respiratory system, leaving us gasping for air even in seemingly calm situations. As someone who has battled anxiety firsthand, I understand how it can hijack your breathing and make you feel like you’re drowning in your thoughts. In this…

View On SoldierofSelf.com

[shamelesslyimpurrfect]

nothing lasts forever :)

[lilacs-and-lavenders]

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills

Mindfulness and Meditation

🌱Some DBT Skills my Psychologist gave me. I want to post these here for anyone else who may find it helpful. I know how hard mental health disorders are to manage and I want to atleast try to help someone else who may also be struggling with this. I am going to challenge myself to practice these skills and just try to think more optimistically. That is going to be challenging considering how cynical my mind has become after so many bad experiences, but nothing is impossible.🌿

This post wouldn't be complete without a cute cat in it. Stay strong and take care of yourselves. ❤️🌸

[ilovedirt]

Mind wanderer: I spend a lot of my mental time thinking aimlessly about my real life in a variety of ways, including creating simulations of real life scenarios involving other people, things in the real world, or projections into the past/future of my present reality

Day dreamer: I spend a lot of my mental time intentionally or aimlessly creating completely fictitious scenarios in my head about creatures, characters, places, and things that do not and/or can not exist in my present reality

Mindful thinker: I spend a lot of my mental time intentionally focusing on the real, present moment of my present existence and experience

Mental ruminator: I spend a lot of my mental time thinking about one thing obsessively, and this one thing may change from time to time to another thing I will think about obsessively, regardless of whether the thing is based in my present reality

[postitforward]

Hello there, lovely people 🌅

We have nothing but good news for you. It is March—the end of March, in fact. And spring is *close* to have sprung, which can only mean good things. Sunshine, color, and time to spend outside with friends or reading under a tree. It’s so close you can almost touch it.🌻

However, calmer blue skies does not always mind a calmer, more peaceful mind. In fact, mindfulness and self-care are essential wellbeing practices for all four seasons, not just the dark and cold months. And while things may be bright and sunny outside, in your mind can be a very different story. But this is where we have someone and something we think that might just help with that: it’s your facilitator for this week’s class Jasmine Marie, CEO and Founder of black girls breathing®! The theme for this session is Breathwork for Anxiety🧘🏽‍♀️🧘🏾🧘🏾‍♀️🧘🏿‍♂️🧘🏾

They know what they are talking about, too. After all, black girls breathing®, provides a safe space for Black women and girls to manage their mental health, and reflect on and heal their trauma through breathwork and community. They aim to offer free and accessible mental health resources to one million Black women and girls by 2025.

So come join us for a class with Jasmine for a breathwork session to provide you with the tools to ease moments of anxiety. These moments will always be there, but breathwork is an active meditation that helps regulate one’s nervous system to create more feelings of calm and decrease stress and anxiety. It could be an essential tool, and it is totally free, too. Nothing to pay, everything to gain. So why not get involved and join us for black girls breathing®, for Mindful Monday on March 27 at 12pm EST.

Want to learn more about @blackgirlsbreathing?

Check out their website!

Ask black girls breathing all the questions on your mind for IssueTime on Navigating Anxiety in an increasingly digital, lonely world

Get to know black girls breathing's founder, Jasmine Marie on her Tumblr Spotlight

Take the pledge with black girls breathing®

[shiningmystic]

How to be effectively mindful throughout your day:

Less social media - put down your phone; this gives your mind room to notice your day instead of looking down at your phone Journaling about your day - ask yourself about your day to acknowledge your emotions because they build up without you knowing Breathing exercises - brings you back into your body and lowers anxiety - I have practiced this many times and it works Reading a book - puts you in a meditative state Planning your meals before hand - slowly eat and enjoy your meals that you prepared - nutrition helps brain function and helps regulate the body Nature walks - observing what you see even the minor details with mindful breathes - this could be 2-5 minutes from your day Working out - puts you in a meditative state and helps the body naturally feel better Watching the stars - observing the sky and taking a deep breath to take it all in Spending time with loved ones - noticing the feelings in your body when you interact with the ones you care for Mindful listening - spending time with loved ones and sending that awareness outward by observing the moment with your loved ones Listen or playing music - puts you in a meditative state Getting good sleep - being grateful about what you have before falling asleep leaves you off on a positive note and sleep naturally heals you

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧✧

As a person who is seeking peace, mindfulness has brought me a lot of it. I believe even doing one of these things can help out your day, go forward on your healing friends and find what works for you.

Support me

-ShiningMystic

[quotelr]

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.

Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation

[nowthatyourehere]

Almost every month, for the last 7 years-a giant rain cloud casts a dark shadow on my reality

Almost every month, for the last 7 years-a giant rain cloud casts a dark shadow on my reality. The way that I perceive this world, and react to this world is then filtered through it.

And yet each month, nothing about my reality really changes, just my perception of it.

I know now that what I was experiencing all this time was called PMDD. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Essentially, 10 days before my period I deal with a depressive episode, ruminating thoughts, and more. 

It’s rough. 

Before I moved to NYC, I remember convincing myself that my new home was the solution to all my sadness. I’d eventually find myself crying on the Q train more times that I can count. 

My (the) mind is like a home - my only constant. I take it everywhere I go, and it’s the longest place I’ll live in, in this lifetime - and it’s through this home that I experience the world. 

And thoughts can be like people showing up to my house like uninvited guests. Except they don’t even knock, they just barge in.  And month after month, after month -- turned years, I was letting people walk in. 

Letting them tell me that the “people around will leave me,” to look for clues and proof in my history that fact, telling me that I’m not good enough.

Telling me that who I am, as I am, is not enough. I let them walk all over me. 

But, we are not our thoughts.

I began to build my own meditation practice, and eventually joined a meditation teacher training to force myself. The FIRST thing it took away from me immediately was my ability to say that I had nothing left to TRY. That is always the case. Perspective is plentiful, and it is everything. 

Through that chapter of effort, it gave me 1) the power of personal responsibility. 2) Hope, and the ability to reflect on the belief that change is possible. 3) Possibility. 

Those thoughts still come walking in. In fact, I’m in that 10 day period. But today, they’re coming through my door a little less sure of themselves. But now I have the power, awareness, and practice to address them in a way that works better for me. I can look past them, or inside of their eyes, and see that they just needed a little bit more love. 

We all deserve to have a safe space in our minds. So try, as much as you need to try. Somewhere. Somehow. It all counts for something, and builds up along the way. 

You wouldn’t expect a flower to bloom in one day, so don’t pull up a chair in frustration waiting on yours. Water it, care for it, live your life, when you drop the ball, wake up the next day and pick it up. It’s all about the return. Never let anything or anyone take your hope away. 

[dk-thrive]

More often than is healthy, I try to catch hold of my thoughts in flight, to consider them as they flutter by, but the problem of course is that the only thing I have to catch them with are other thoughts, which themselves cannot be captured unless by – yes, exactly! – other thoughts.

— Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Third Realm: A Novel (Penguin Press, October 1, 2024)

[sopheadraws]

My Beginner Friendly Meditation For Hyperactivity and Anxiety 👍

(I am very bad at traditional meditation. I promise this is easy.)

I have no idea where this technique came from, and I certainly didn't invent it. My only qualification is that I've been in a lot of therapy for anxiety. Ha. All I can say is this technique has worked for me, and I've successfully talked down a couple of people from anxious episodes by passing it along. If it doesn't work for you, that's okay.

Lay down on the ground (or couch, bed, whatever) in an environment that's as free of as much sensory stimuli as possible. If quiet classical music, soft lights, essential oils, etc. help relax you, that's fine, but nothing that's going to distract you from your own body and mind. I prefer to be fully nude and covered by a weighted blanket, but I trust you to determine for yourself what fabric situation is going to be the least distracting and most grounding. Close your eyes.

Your job is to perceive the bodily functions you wouldn't usually think about. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. With each breath, air moves through your nasal passages, down your throat, into your lungs, and back up again. Your ribs expand and contract with each breath. You feel it all. Put your fingers to your neck to feel your pulse. The beats are constant and equal. Can you feel your heart beating inside your contracting ribs without your hands? Each beat the same as your pulse?

Beginning with your toes and moving upwards, evaluate each body part. Tense the muscle. And release. Repeat. Don't move upwards until the muscle is completely flaccid. Toes, ankles, calves, knees...sternum, shoulders, neck. As you do this, don't forget your breathing. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Slow and steady.

You are a human. A collection of systems. So many factors working together to create a body. Fascinating.

[luminarai]

Just found this app called breasy that I highly recommend to people with breathing issues related to anxiety, stress, asthma, vcd, chronic hyperventilation, and the like. Or if you just want to work on some breathing exercises for mindfulness or meditation.

It’s totally free and comes with 5 different breathing exercises with super short descriptions of what they can be used for.

It looks like this, but you can remove the stars if you want to

You can also add/remove vibrations and sounds for the exercises so that you get a soft chime or vibration when you need to exhale/hold/inhale (the chimes are pitched slightly different depending on the action so you can use it without looking as well, which I really like!). You can also set a timer for a session.

I’ve really struggled with asthma related breathing issues lately and this is pretty helpful for me when it comes to not over-inhaling or panicking when I’m waiting for my medication to kick in when I’m having an asthma attack, so I just wanted to pass a recommendation along in case it could help someone else too.

[samuwhal]

We need to change how we talk about self-help techniques.

By self-help techniques, I’m talking about: grounding, mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, physical activity, and--the big one--yoga. I have struggled with my mental health since I was fifteen, and just now, I am realizing how much these things can actually help. I am almost twenty-six years old, and I will have been in therapy for ten years this fall. Let me tell you, I have spent so much of that time renouncing these tools. Recently, though I’ve realized that: holy shit, they can really work...but man they are offered to struggling people in the worst possible light.

TL;DR: Just because suggestions about ways to manage mental illness are framed as “you have to try it or you want to be sick” doesn’t mean that they can’t actually work or that you are invalidating yourself by trying or being helped by them. Featuring personal anecdotes and a boat metaphor.

I know I am not alone in that the idea of these techniques and exercises just made my skin crawl. They made me feel vulnerable in a way which really scared me, they felt impossible to initiate in the moments needed most, and--ultimately--they felt incredibly diminutive. Think about it: people getting sucked into rapids will drown cursing your name if all you do is insist they have to “ride the wave.” “Fuck you.”

When I began taking anti-depressants, it was not without a fight. I’m lucky; my parents were willing and able to put me in therapy as soon as I asked. But with medication, they were concerned it was a shortcut, that I would be on pills for the rest of my life, and that the chemicals would change me and do “the work” for me, as if this was an issue of character development and not brain malfunction. Why wouldn’t I just do something relaxing when I was upset? Why wasn’t I leaning more into my spirituality? Why wasn’t I letting anything else help me?

And that’s the problem! I tried to explain that I would be able to use those techniques easier if medication brought my overall symptoms down. You wouldn’t expect me to paddle upstream against a tsunami, but I could feasibly make progress against a strong current. Even at that point, if I go over rapids, I want a fucking life jacket, not somebody with their feet firmly planted on the riverbank shouting, “Try yoga!” Though I of course continued therapy in addition to medicine, I still resisted any advice having to do with self-help because of that sentiment.

To be clear, I’m still very pro-medication and for eliminating that stigma. Really, though, when somebody is having such debilitating symptoms--emotions--that they feel like they are getting pulled underwater and gasping for air, it’s not fair that the solution could be something as effortless as breathing in while counting until it’s better. That sounds like bullshit. Mental illness physically hurts, but to outsiders, it’s all in your head, and it would be fine if only you could step back and appreciate how good you have it. If “mindfulness” works, then maybe those people are right, and that can’t be true. It hurts too much to be true.

However, I want you to know that your struggles won’t be any less legitimate if something simple actually does end up helping. I have two stories here:

1. Last year, after wanting to start for ages, I finally began exercising: just going to the gym a couple of times a week. My goal was only to feel better in my body, not really to do anything for myself mentally. I even hired a personal trainer to write work-out routines for me to follow, both to hold myself accountable (I won’t skip if I’m paying someone) and just so I wouldn’t be totally lost the second I walked in. But I have felt so many unexpected mental benefits, as well:

Getting my heart rate and breathing elevated--and continuing to exert myself through it--has kept me steadier when anxiety starts to set in. I feel more confident knowing that I can lift heavy things, run distances, and because I did something productive. I’m not stress or bored-eating, not necessarily because I’m afraid I’ll “put the calories back,” but because I’m simply more regulated. I have been sleeping better since pushing my muscles has reduced my lower back pain. I don’t procrastinate showering if I’ve just gotten back from the gym. When I sit down to schoolwork, I focus easier if I had exercised. Something something endorphins. I know I’m starting to sound like a “bro,” but the point is that these are huge benefits to exercising that just don’t get mentioned by the people crudely suggesting that it will fix your depression.

2. A couple of months ago, I was having a bad night, and the “don’t believe any negative thoughts about yourself after 10 p.m.” rule had gone out the window. I did what many of us have taught ourselves to do and asked for a lifeline: I texted my girlfriend in the same room (because vocalizing it was too hard) asking if she would come over to sit with me. I didn’t even realize I was having an anxiety attack, but she did. At first, I felt too frozen and in-pain when she asked me to sit up from clutching the fetal position. Instrumentally, though, she said that she wanted to help, but I had to help myself, too. She was throwing me a ring, but I had to swim and meet her halfway. I sat up.

She held me and led me through a “find five things in the room” exercise, and fuck me: it helped. No, I wasn’t cured. I’m still not. But this broke my self-destructive loop, and I was able to go to sleep relaxed. This was an epiphany for me. I could have provided myself this tool, this comfort, the entire ten years I’ve been dealing with this shit! Instead, I’ve just been enduring it, hoping against everything pulling me down that--instead of drowning--I’ll eventually kick the riverbed where it’s shallow enough to stand.

When self-help techniques are offered to mentally ill people, they tend to be used as a “gotcha:” you could easily be better, if only you wanted to try. To be completely fair, this isn’t always the meaning. However, it only takes a couple of those microaggressions to ensure you shut down when your therapist or a concerned loved one asks if you've tried "grounding” before.

Please, take it from me: these tools aren’t just leaky arm floats that people who never even needed to learn how to swim offer just to feel better as they watch you struggle. They are a life jacket to keep you afloat when you tip, a wider paddle to outrun the rapids, a better rudder and tiller so you can actually steer, a bailing bucket for when things get dicey, or pontoons so you won’t tip so readily. Trying self-help techniques doesn’t disclaim what you’re going through, they just might make it more bearable.

And you’re worth that.

[shamelesslyimpurrfect]

<3

[maxiglow]

things I did this week instead of rotting in bed

the last three weeks were pretty awful since I lost myself in a major depressive phase, leading me to need a psychiatric report. but the this week I tried to to some things different that lead me to feel slightly better (which is already great)! better a few things than nothing!!

I ate healthy food, lots of fruits (specially strawberries, my fav one) and I ate breakfast everyday;

I walked for two hours on thursday (I forgot to use my smartwatch to count the steps but it was a lot!!);

I allowed myself to rest a lot which was relaxing and frustrating since I felt more depressed afterwards but I indeed needed to sleep my stress away;

I *kinda* organized my bedroom, it’s still pretty messy but it doesn’t have rotten food in my bed anymore;

I went back to journaling;

I went back to my meditation practices and I was even able to meditate for 30 minutes straight!!

inspired by @unfuckup <3

[simplicity-16]

Perspective Positive Mind Frame Quote Vectorised Simplified Graphic Illustration Wall Art. Nigh Sky, Moon, Stones, Meditation.

[seedsense]

The ability to move on!

Stop ... Breathe ... Feel

Recenter !

What do you feel?

A little anxious ! But I know I have me.

Surrendering into inner space.

I'm here... exhale...

I'm grateful in the middle of the unknown because I choose to. ✨️