Post by URBAN FARMING on Mar 31, 2014 12:38:34 GMT -6
“Most of us experience at least some degree of anxiety. This can take the form of emotional distress, including worries and fears, obsessions and compulsions, anger and irritability, as well as physical distress, including restlessness and agitation, sweating and racing pulse, aches and pains.
While it is tempting to simply accept these symptoms as an inevitable part of life, it is clear that we have the potential to become relatively free from anxiety. By definition, anxiety is unrealistic fear. While fear is adaptive, and triggers a protective “fight-flight” coping response to real danger, anxiety is a maladaptive overreaction to exaggerated perceived risks and threats.
Worrying that you will never find a life partner, that you or a loved one will become ill and never recover, or that you will fail an upcoming test and, as a result, become a failure in life, are just a few of the countless ways we tend to create irrational catastrophic fears. These unrealistic beliefs can dramatically impact our mood, attitudes, and behaviors, leading us to become distressed and impaired in our ability to function and enjoy our life. Recurrent anxiety can have a devastating toll on all aspects of our life, including our physical, emotional, and spiritual health, personal and work relationships, as well as creativity, pleasure, and productivity. Moreover, we become unable to develop and maintain loving attitudes and behaviors since anxiety leads to self-preoccupation and survival-based needs.
When we can truly recognize the irrational nature of our fears, we are often able to calm down and rediscover a sense of peace and well-being. For instance, by logically assessing the real risk of failing the test, based on prior life experience and other irrefutable facts, we are generally able to stay calm as well as more effective and ultimately successful. Moreover, if we step back and look at the “big picture,” we can recognize that even one failure on a test does not imply a failure in our career path, or life more generally. This is the method used in cognitive-behavioral therapy and other forms of psychotherapy. Realistic thinking can function like a shock absorber in our automobile – it smoothes out the bumps in the roadway of life. The bottom line is that stress in our outer world does not need to inevitably lead to distress in our inner world.”
Quoted from the Deepak Chopra web site. To read more: www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/1531/freedom_from_anxiety