I am putting together different ways in which we can deal with anxiety and be stress free. This is Part III of the series : Break Free of Anxiety Habits – Creative Ways to Deal with Stress and Overcome Anxiety.
[ For Part I of the series, click here ]

[ For Part II of the series, click here ]

Ask Right Questions To Deal With Anxiety

1. Let go of anxiety

An Indian sage Shantideva has following take on anxiety -
“If you have a problem and you can do something about it, there is no need to get anxious about it because you can actively do something to solve it. On the other hand, if there is nothing you can do to solve it, getting anxious about it is useless — it won’t fix the problem. So either way you look at it, whether the problem is solvable or unsolvable, there is no sense in getting anxious or upset about it. Try thinking like that about one of your problems. Just sit for a minute and think, “Is there something I can do about this or not?” If something can be done, go ahead and do that — there’s no need to sit around and worry. If nothing can be done to alter the situation, it is useless to worry. Just let it go.”

2. Sow a seed of doubt

Weaken the basic premise of anxiety. What makes you anxious? Question your logic, question your assumptions, question the future you are predicting. For all of these, just ask – Is this true? Can I be wrong? And you will observe what seemed 100% gauranteed has now turned into 50% maybe and then 25% maybe. By stepping back and evaluating, by questioning your thoughts, you will be able to judge properly and this will diminish the power negative thoughts have over you.

3. Use Power Questions

One of the best ways to keep mind off the worry track is to focus on positives in your life. Can’t think of anything positive at this moment? Then use power of questions. Ask yourself -

• If I have to be, what are the things in my life I can be thankful about?
• If I have to name 5 positive things in my life, what would they be?
• What is right in my life today?
• If I really have to mention something good about the current situation, what would that be?
• What would it take to make this perfect?

Following is an interesting Zen Koan titled “Maybe”.

Koan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism.

A farmer’s horse ran away. His neighbors gathered upon hearing the news and said sympathetically, “That’s such bad luck.”

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The horse returned on his own the next morning, and brought seven wild horses with it. “Look how many more horses you have now,” the neighbors exclaimed. “How lucky!”

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next day, the farmer’s son attempted to ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. “How awful,” the neighbors said. “It looks like your luck has turned for the worse again.”

The farmer simply replied, “Maybe.”

The following day, military officers came to town to conscript young men into the service. Seeing the son’s broken leg, they rejected him. The neighbors gathered round the farmer to tell him how fortunate he was.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

What’s your interpretation of this story?

Ask Right Questions To Deal With Anxiety And A Zen Koan is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.

I am putting together different ways in which we can deal with anxiety and be stress free. This is Part II of the series : Break Free of Anxiety Habits – Creative Ways to Deal with Stress and Overcome Anxiety.

[For Part I of the series, click here]

5 Ways to Use Mind Power to Overcome Anxiety and Be Stress Free

1. Break the Loop, Gain Clarity
Have you ever heard an anxious mind? It doesn’t speak … it rambles. And repeats. The thoughts take circular patterns. It’s as if there is a tape being played in our mind which has a replay button on by default. No matter which part we skip or solve, we always come back to it again because that part is not resolved in the tape. Same problems, same thoughts, same worries keep repeating in one form or another. Often making problems appear larger than they are. And increased problems means increased anxiety. The only solution to this is to break the loop to gain clarity.

I have written earlier about How To Get Clarity In Thoughts. It focusses on following techniques:

• Write in points. No stories, just points.
• Create a table to compare details of all options
• Draw a diagram to chart out your thought flows
• Focus on one thing at a time
• Bounce your ideas/thoughts at someone
• Are you really confused?

2. Get hold of your thoughts, Channel them in the right direction
Since anxiety and stress often is a result of thoughts, controlling thoughts or rather purposefully channelling thoughts in the right direction is one of the most sensible solution available. Often people think that thoughts cannot be controlled, mind cannot be controlled. Nothing is farther from truth. We do possess the ability to control our thoughts and decide which thoughts to pursue and which to reject. By focussing more on constructive thinking, and empowering thoughts we can belittle the power negative thoughts have on us and in turn, reduce anxiety and stress.

3. Lesser The Thoughts, Lesser The Anxiety
I had read somewhere “All negative thoughts occur because we lose focus. They are a form of distraction“. So true it seems. We lose focus from doing our work and thoughts, worries, fears and judgement creeps in. These later on, lead to worry, stress and anxiety.

Imagine a time when you have no thoughts about past or future. No worries, no regrets, no fear. You are in the present, your mind deeply focussed and lost in whatever you are doing. Such a focussed mind reduces chances of anxiety creeping in.

[You can read about Focussed Meditation here]

Stress often increases our pace of thoughts in the wrong direction. So slow down. Breathe slowly. And focus on your breathing for a while. Forget about everything else, just focus on breathing slowly and deeply. Make your mind to think slowly as well. As thoughts come in slowly, you will have time to proactively weed out the negative ones rather than react to them.

Varied forms of meditation increase focus and help mind to be thought free. Try out a few types of meditation. And find out a form that you would love to do. I mix-matched a lot of meditation styles to come up with something that I enjoy doing. You might want to try it out.

[You can read about my customized meditation technique here]

4. Give Yourself A Doze Of Positive Self Talk
Talk to yourself. Talk as if you are talking to a friend or a child who needs your support in times of anxiety. You already know why you are anxious. Talk to yourself to alleviate those fears. Love yourself, accept yourself the way you are. Forgive, encourage, give hope and a vote of confidence.

You can sit in a crossed leg position somewhere in silence. And close your eyes and talk to yourself. You can do so in front of the mirror. It might feel strange in the beginning. But do so anyways. Positive self talk can do wonders for the soul; it’s heals you from within.

5. Apply these techniques, Reduce Stress, Worry and Anxiety
These are very simple but effective strategies to stop worrying. They all are quite similar to each other in approach. Hence, I have grouped them together.

• Shift worrying to tomorrow every day.
  If you find yourself stressed about a situation in the future, tell yourself, “I will worry about this tomorrow. Since it is not going to happen for now, let me enjoy life today or let me finish this task today or let me …“. Try to delay worrying one day at a time. And do notice that as you postpone worrying by a day at a time, you soon become master in using thoughts to stop worrying for now. This freedom from worry and stress is sometimes all you need to come up with creative solutions to problems that are bothering you.
• Bargain with Worries.
  This is quite similar to Bargain with Pain approach. Simply put, given a problem you are worried about, ask yourself for how long are you going to worry about it. And then start the bargaining process to reduce the worrying time. You can reduce by 30 mins, 1 hour, half the time … anything you are comfortable with. But, do remember to not to get very comfortable with the worrying time. The idea is to give practice to mind to stop worrying or worry for only allotted time period.
  [You can read about Bargain with Pain here]
• Make an Appointment with Worry.
  Ofcourse there will be somethings in life you are worried or stressed about. And you would like to mull over and ponder over those. Make an appointment with worries for them. Everyday set a time period which is specifically for worrying. You can worry as much as you like in this time zone. But the catch is, you cannot worry for the rest of day. As you master this, reduce amount of appointments with worry you have. From daily to alternate days to weekly to fortnightly .. I guess you are getting the picture. The idea behind this is that it is nearly impossible to move from worry-full to worry-free immediately. These techniques will allow you to set your pace and not get overwhelmed. And slowly but surely you will overcome anxiety and become stress free.

Tune in Next Monday for more ways to deal with anxiety.
To ensure that you do not miss any part of this series, consider subscribing to RSS Feed or Email Updates for free.

Update : Part III of the series : Ask Right Questions To Deal With Anxiety And A Zen Koan

Books On Dealing With Anxiety

Mind Power to Overcome Anxiety And Be Stress Free is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with anxiety? Feel constantly tense, have trouble concentrating, are persistently irritable or have a constant fear of something? Do you fear the worst outcome for everything in life? Have some serious self doubts and self confidence issues?

Anxiety can come up in varied forms and for varied reasons. And since it can come up for multiple reasons, we need multiple ways of dealing with it. Often we try one or two methods that we know of and then scratch our heads wondering – How do I deal with anxiety? How do I overcome anxiety?

I am putting together different ways in which we can overcome anxiety. This is Part I of the series : Break Free of Anxiety Habits – Creative Ways to Deal with Stress and Overcome Anxiety.

3 Simple Ways of Overcoming Anxiety

• Accept and Observe anxiety

Stop fighting anxiety. And be with it. In the beginning this might be very difficult to do. But do this anyways. Observe and observe. Do nothing beyond that. Notice how does it start. What are you thinking at that moment. How is your body posture. What are you feeling at that moment. What are you telling yourself. Get to know everything related to anxiety specific to you. How do you get anxious. And don’t fight it. Just be.

As you keep observing, you will slowly see yourself having a third party view of how anxiety operates within you. This observation is important. For it will show you what do you do to cause anxiety and how does axiety pave its way within you. This knowledge will come handy when you decide to beat anxiety out of your system. And become a kind of person who is always anxiety free. But for now, just observe.

You will notice, that sometimes, this act by itself is enough to reduce your feelings. When you simply observe – you don’t judge and you don’t fight, the power that negative thoughts, emotions has over you gradually decreases. It’s as if feeling stressed and anxious is just a phase and without any extra inputs from you, it passes away.

I agree this is tough. But do so anyways. This is your first step in gaining control back. And showing who is in charge. You might be anxious. But you can accept it and see it and allow it. And in process, gain tools for dealing with it and tackling your feelings of anxiety in the bud.

• Tap into your existing knowledge and abilities

Some specific things that you should observe and make note of are

1. How do you get anxious. If you have to teach someone how to get anxious like you, what would you tell them?. If someone has to enact you, thought by thought, emotion by emotion, body posture, facial expressions, activities … what would you tell them? Find your pattern.

2. How do you get out of anxiety. Feelings of anxiety come in phases. Observe what are you thinking, doing, feelling, acting at the end of the phase. What is making you feel better and helping you come out of this phase. What are you telling yourself? What are you doing with your hands, with your body? Which place makes you feel better?

Now that you have answers to two very powerful questions – how do you get anxious and how do you get out anxiety, use them constructively. Start changing things which trigger anxiety. And start doing things which relieve anxiety. The knowledge for both is within you. You know how to be anxious and how to deal with anxiety. All I am saying is use that knowledge to your benefit.
Avoid everything that makes you anxious and replace them with what works.

Experiment this as much as you can. The idea here is to eliminate everything that causes you anxiety and fasten the process of getting out of anxiety.

• Deal with anxiety reasons one by one.

Pick up one reason why you are anxious. Write down all your fears related to it. For instance, you have to make a speech and you are scared of making a fool of yourself, forgetting your speech, people boo-booing you etc. Don’t judge yourself while writing, don’t pause. Just write. Write all the worst case scenarios that you can think of. After you finish take a pause.

For each item, give a rating from 1-10. 1 means low probability of it ever happening and 10 means high probability of it happening. You will be surprised at how few items rank above 5. As you look at the list and the rating that you have given, your anxiety will automatically reduce. Since now you understand that whatever you fear has negligible chance of occurring. If something does rank higher than 5, develop a contingency plan for it. Having a action plan in hand for difficult scenarios helps to alleviate anxiety.

Tune in Next Monday for more ways to deal with anxiety.
To ensure that you do not miss any part of this series, consider subscribing to RSS Feed or Email Updates for free.

Update: Part II of Series : Mind Power to Overcome Anxiety and Be Stress Free

Break Free of Anxiety Habits – Creative Ways to Deal With Stress And Overcome Anxiety is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.

This is the third and final part of an ongoing series – Find Your Own Sanctuary.

Find Your Own Sanctuary Part 1 – With Nature focussed on spending time in nature, absorbing the beauty, the stillness, the calmness, the sounds at different times of the day to relax and rejuvenate.

Part II – 11 Refreshing Ways to Find Your Own Sanctuary – is all about getting refreshed and re-energized in totally unexpected places. Unexpected because we have not really seen these places/activities as a possible relaxation option. Unexpected because inspite of knowing these places/activities work, we sometimes forget about them and loose out on some simple refreshment options.

Find Your Own Sanctuary III focusses on finding your sanctuary within. The technique mentioned can be done at any place with whatever time available and is still effective. Think how wonderful it would be if in an increasingly busy and stressful day, you could relax and freshen up within a span of five minutes. And that too without being dependant on anything external to relieve your stress. This technique offers you exactly that. I have experimented and mix-matched a lot of meditation techniques to come up with this one which suits me.

Select a quiet place.
Select a place where you can be with yourself without any distractions for atleast 5 mins. Initially, you will have to sit in one place while practicing this. Choose your location accordingly.

Breathe in and breathe out.
Sit in any comfortable position and close your eyes. Now breathe in and breathe out. Focus on your breath through mind. Focus on the sensation of air moving in and out of your nostrils. Feel your belly rise and fall. Don’t think of anything else. Simply focus on your breath. Continue doing this till you notice that your mental chatter has reduced.

See yourself on a spiral stairway
Now see yourself on top of a spiral stairway. You can either see the stairway through your eyes – as if you are seeing the stairway from top of it. Or you can see yourself standing on the stairway from a distance – as if you are seeing a movie featuring you. The latter is easier to do.

Once you can see yourself and the stairway clearly, get down slowly. Avoid going fast, skipping the walk or fast forwarding the walk. As you near the end of the stairway, you see a closed door.

Open the door leading to your private sanctuary

Photo Courtesy of bbsc30

This door leads to your private sanctuary – a scenic, beautiful, soothing place. This could be a garden, a mountain side, river bank, lake side, forest … whatever you like. You are free to create your sanctuary the way you want.

Open the door and enter you sanctuary.

Savour your sanctuary
Savour everything around through all your senses. Hear soothing sounds/music playing in the background. Feel the freshness in the air. Let yourself be in awe and inspiration of the beauty and serenity of this place.

Find your favourite spot to relax. And enjoy. My favourite spot is to sit near a water body with my feet in water. Sometimes, I love sitting on a swing as well.

Create bubbles
As you are enjoying your sanctuary, don’t allow external thoughts to come in and engage your mind. Everytime you catch a thought, put it in a bubble and see it slowly go up towards the sky. See it … till it disappears. And again relax and enjoy. When you begin, you might find that all you are creating is bubbles. But that’s all right. With practice, this reduces. If you feel too distracted, focus on your breathing for a while and start enjoying your sanctuary again.

Slowly open your eyes
Stay in your sanctuary for as long as you like. And smile as you get relaxed and feel soothed. Whenever you are ready to get back, slowly open your eyes. Give yourself a minute to get back completely.

And get started with the rest of your day.

Instant De-stressing and Relaxation Technique – Anytime, Anywhere is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.

Photo Courtesy of Tostie14

This is Part II of an ongoing series – Find your own sanctuary.

Find your own Sanctuary Part 1 – With Nature focussed on spending time in nature, absorbing the beauty, the stillness, the calmness, the sounds at different times of the day to relax and rejuvenate.

Find your own sanctuary II is all about getting refreshed and re-energized in totally unexpected ways. Unexpected because we have not really seen them as a possible refreshment option. Unexpected because inspite of knowing that they work, we sometimes forget about them and lose out on some simple refreshment options.

11 Refreshing Ways to Find Your Own Sanctuary

1. Have fun with water.
Splash water on your face, take a bath or shower to relieve tension, go for a swim, play with kids in water.

2. Use laughter therapy
Laugh and smile. Read comic books, watch your favourite comedy re-runs, share a joke, tickle your spouse.

3. Bring out the chef in you
Use food therapy. Not by eating – but by cooking. Treat your spouse with a day off. Use variety of vegetables, add a dash of spices, savour the flavour. Be creative. Create a recipe of your own.

4. Bring out those dusty photo albums
Get those photo albums, videos and letters. Go through them. Share your stories, pass comments and have a blast with your family along the way.

5. Meet the kid in you
Each of us is a kid at heart. Be that kid. Go to garden and swing, pick up your favourite sports and play to your hearts fill, forget about everything other than playing and having fun. Laugh, giggle and be silly.

6. Exercise
Put on your running shoes and go for a sprint, go to gym and work out for a while, take a yoga class, aerobic class – use your body in some form and exert it a bit. Give mind some rest.

7. Catch up with song, dance and movies
Listen to music, humm a song, dance to your favourite numbers. Catch up with your favourite movies and quote all dialogues as you know them by heart.

8. Be a friend
Call up good old friends and catch up with them, chat with your neighbours and be friend them, meet up with friends and spend time together.

9. Spend time with family
Take your spouse on a date, have a long walk and long long conversations. Take kids to parks and play with them. Spend time at home with family.

10. Take a break from technology
Unplug your phone, have a laptop/internet free day. Spend some time with yourself. Spoil yourself, treat yourself, pamper yourself.

11. Do something you really enjoy
What are your hobbies? What do you enjoy doing the most? Go to sleep, read a book, play a game, go golfing, sking, dancing, cooking, trekking … do whatever you enjoy the most. Re-connect with your hobbies. Do something you really enjoy.

Stay tuned for Find your own sanctuary III – Within

11 Refreshing Ways to Find Your Own Sanctuary is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.

The first rule of focus is “Wherever you are, be there”. – Source Unknown

Photo Courtesy of Harshad Sharma

There is no doubt that increased levels of focus and concentration can do wonders to our lives. Being able to focus on current task without distractions, without interrupting thoughts would make our productivity levels jump. While removing external distractions and getting organized do help staying focussed and be more productive, they do not help in raising our focus levels.

Staying focussed is a practice. And like anything else, the more we practice, the better we get at it. How to get razor sharp focus? Following is one of the several techniques one can use to raise levels of focus and concentration:

Focussed Meditation Technique:

Choose a location
Choose a place where you can meditate without distractions – no phones, no people, less noise etc. The idea is to avoid as many distractions as possible. Over a period of time however, with enough practice you will be able to meditate whenever and wherever you want.

Choose your sitting position
While crossed legged position is the most commonly used sitting position, it is not compulsory. Sit in a position you are comfortable in. In which you can relax and not fidget too much.

You can also try standing and sleeping positions if you want to. Standing for long period of time is very uncomfortable. And in sleeping position, the risk is of actually falling asleep.

Choose any object
Choose any object you would like to focus upon. A candle flame, a rose, an idol are commonly used. But you need not be limited to these. A pen, a ball, a tree, a plant, a book, a bottle, a picture … anything that catches your fancy will do. Only conditions are:

• a. The object should be at eye level – now you don’t want to strain your neck, do you?
• b. The object should be of adequate size – not so small that you have to squint and not as large as a cupboard or wall. The idea is to focus on something specific.

Using eyes – visual sense is very common. Feel free to try out auditory, tactile and olfactory senses as well. I find focussing with eyes on a concrete object easier. It is very difficult to focus with help of other senses on scent of incense, touch of wind, music etc.

Focus the object
Focus the object. Observe it. And keep observing it. Concentrate on it with everything that you have got. Concentrate with your entire mind. Don’t think about anything. Let your mind be thought free. Just see the object.

Keep focussing
It is all right to lose focus. If you find getting lost in thoughts or getting distracted, don’t beat yourself up. Simply acknowledge you lost focus and re-focus. Thinking about how you lost focus or can’t focus is also not focussing and is getting distracted.

That’s it. This might sound easy but it’s not. If you would like to see how much have you progressed, focus for same amount of time everyday. Everytime you lose focus, make a mark on a piece of paper. Your goal is to be mark free

Increase Focus and Concentration Levels Through Focussed Meditation is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.

I went to beach yesterday evening for a walk. Soft sand cushioning my feet, light breeze passing by me, playful waves forming continuosly and then disappearing. And in it’s constant coming and going, taking away some of my thoughts and leaving me with a peaceful mind.

I found a slow smile develop on my face and a bounce in my steps as well. It felt as if some weight of thoughts, of to-dos and tasks and action items have melted away. And in that moment, I was neither in my past, nor in my future. In that moment, I was not ‘elsewhere’ in my thought world. I was at the beach, looking at the waves, feeling the breeze and the sand … I was totally in the moment, completely in the present. What a wonderful feeling that is.

By the time I returned home, I felt refreshed and rejuvenated. I found a new energy and spark in me. My creative juices were flowing freely. I was happier, at peace and in a state of calm. All this in a time span of just 30 minutes.

I wondered how and where else can I find this. I pondered over how to find my own sanctuary, my personal haven to revitalize myself. And answers came tumbling in my mind. Some referencing to my past sanctuaries. And some taking inspiration and creating new ones. Sharing them with you.

Part I : Finding your own sanctuary with nature

Greet the morning rays

There is something magical about the first few rays. Seeing them lit up the sky, listening to birds welcome them with their singing and chirping, seeing the world lazily wake up is a beautiful experience by itself. After I started waking up early, being with sunrise has been one of the most cherished moments of my day. Everyday it feels as if I got a surprise present. Being able to watch sunrise was no where in my list of benefits of waking up early. Everyday a thank you comes from my heart – a thank you to god for one more beautiful day.

New day in sunset

Sunsets have been my favourite time of the day. Every evening sky looks different with the randomly added colours. Every evening sky looks alive with colours, light and clouds playing with each other. There is a different kind of cheerfulness present. You will know what I mean if you too feel the way I do. I simply love sitting by the window and look at the sky, listen to music, see cars coming and going, hear birds constant twittering. It’s as if … the day has begun again in the form of night.

Walk in the nature

Does nature ever call you in the middle of the day? In middle of some task? Sometimes I get pulled by a beautiful day and inviting weather. It tempts me so much that I drop whatever I am doing and join it. I walk aimlessly through woods, around the complex. Join nature in celebration. Celebration for no reason at all.

There are so many more sanctuaries to be found in nature. Relaxing beaches, twinkling nights, drizzling rains … Where have you found your sanctuary?

Stay tuned for Find your own sanctuary II – At unexpected places

Find your own sanctuary is a post from: Avani-Mehta.com Download & Share: The Fabulous Motivators E-Book.