Blog Posts Tagged "Anxiety".

Here’s an idea for a behavioral experiement for people who ruminate (passively & repeatedly think about the causes or consequences of problems without moving to active problem solving. Often involves self-criticism).

Prep: If you have a smart phone, you might find this easiest to do using your phone to record (you could use a basic notetaking app or your calendar app, or whatever suits you).

Or, you could just use a piece of paper/notebook.

Record: each time you notice yourself ruminating (as it happens)

You might do this by noticing
- when you are lost in thought,
- thinking about the past or the future, or
- when you are feeling negative emotions.

Any of these can act as triggers for you to ask yourself “Am I ruminating right now?” Or “Was I just ruminating?”

Record approx how many minutes you were ruminating for.

At the end of each day, record: any incidents of rumination that led to useful problem solving i.e., you took a specific action.

At the end of the week: Calculate your ratio

e.g.,

15 incidents of rumination, taking up approximately 10 hours, 3 incidents of it leading to problem solving = efficiency rating of 20% (3 incidents of problem solving out of 15 incidents of rumination) or 3 hr 20 mins of rumination to 1 problem solving action.

4 topics ruminated about, only 1 topic problem solved.

(Note that even the act of doing the recording is likely to lead to you doing more problem solving so your problem solving number might be higher).

Make an advance prediction:

Before you start, make a prediction of how much time you spend ruminating and your efficiency percentage. The goal of the exercise is to test how realistic your thoughts are about your rumination and perhaps give yourself some objective, personalized evidence that your rumination is not very useful for problem solving and how much time is available for thinking about something else.

Behavioral experiments have been shown to be highly effective in changing both thoughts and behavior.

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Validity Quotient Screencast (CLICK THIS LINK TO VIEW THE FULL SIZE VERSION OF THE VIDEO)

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Perfect for the Xmas season and/or if you are prone to rumination.

Things you can do in 1 Minute to give your brain & body a break from overthinking and stress.

1.

Pick 1 daily activity that you plan to do mindfully (with your full attention).

For example, kiss your child mindfully when they are leaving for school.

2.

One minute of paying attention to something relaxing.

e.g., looking out the window at the movement of leaves in the wind.

3.

One minute of mindful single-tasking on whatever you are doing right now. Each time your mind wanders to the past or future during the one minute, gently bring your attention back to your single task.

For example,

- If you are walking, then walking mindfully for 1 minute. Pay attention to how your body feels walking, the air on your skin etc.

- If you are eating a chocolate, pay full attention to the sensory experiences – the weight of it in your hand, the feeling of it against your lips, the smells etc.

4.

One minute of mindful breathing. Drop your shoulders then just slow breathing. Approx 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out for a total of 10 breaths in 1 Minute.

5.

One minute of mindful lying down. On your back. Let your feel fall away from each other (fall outwards). Stretch your arms out palms up. If you are at the computer a lot this will give your pecs a nice stretch. You can use bolsters like in this pic.

I recommend just doing this on the floor. If you do it on your bed you might start to feel sleepy.

Or, any other “Restorative Yoga” pose for 1 minute. Restorative Yoga is yoga that gives your body a break from holding itself up. You can just google restorative yoga poses and will find heaps of info. If you find a pose, try it, and like it – I would love it if you would tweet me or put a link to the pose on the blog’s Facebook wall. It’s helpful for me to know what poses people like and find easy to do, so I can recommend to others.

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