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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2539 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 30, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I'm curious what is going on in your mind when you are feeling tense. Are there particular thoughts you keep returning to? How do you respond mentally when you have these feelings?

Anxiety feeds on itself, and one of the main drivers is rumination. Rumination is a choice and there are ways to train yourself away from it. You mention a lot of behaviors you are changing to deal with anxiety, but you might also want to think about thought processes you need to change.

I went through a period in my life in which I was ruminating so much on personal problems that I was completely unable to concentrate on anything. The way I'm feeling right now is distinct from that: I can watch a film, concentrate on it and follow the plot, I just don't derive much pleasure from doing so, if any.

That honestly sounds more like depression than anxiety. Anhedonia is a core symptom of depression

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