Holistic Therapy For Anxiety Treatment: Negative Thought Loops + Ruminating Thoughts

November 2, 2020 Brandi Jackson

Holistic Therapy For Anxiety Treatment: Negative Thought Loops + Ruminating Thoughts

Have you ever felt anxious about something going unexpectedly wrong in your life where you did not feel like the situation was in your control? Did the negative thoughts and emotions keep circling around in your head for hours? Sometimes negative thoughts will loop in our minds because we are interested to naturally problem solve. But sometimes we have an issue that will need time to resolve which means the negative thought loop or ruminating thoughts will potentially do more harm than good.

In the paragraphs below, I would like to share some of my favorite anxiety management treatments for negative thought loops also known clinically as ruminating thoughts.

Meditation Can Help Your Anxiety

It may seem difficult to believe that meditation would even be possible when you experience ruminating thoughts. The truth is you can practice focusing your mind on your breathing and focusing on bringing your energy into a calmer space by trying and being intentionally single focused. If you struggle with thinking clearly when anxious like most, consider meditations that are meant for body awareness like completing a relaxation body scan or sending peaceful energy throughout your body for increased sensation of relaxing more deeply.

You can also follow a guided meditation to help channel focused thoughts and needed relaxation when you feel overwhelmed by ruminating negative thoughts. I have several guided meditations that are free and available on my YouTube Channel. You can also opt to follow a mantra-based meditation where you will verbally or mentally repeat a healing or calming phrase for the duration of your meditation session. Ideally after even a 5-10 minute meditation session you are likely to feel more relaxed than before making time to focus on energy shifting and reducing stimulus. You may not feel like you won the lotto after a meditation but 99% of people who genuinely practice will feel better.

Use Internal Narration To Stay Present

When your struggling with ruminating anxious thoughts something that may help you focus your thoughts, attention, and memory is to single task where you complete literally just one thing at a time without moving on to do anything else until you complete the task you are working on.

The other part of what makes this tool/ practice so amazing for anxiety is the internal narration component. As you single task your work try to also repeat/ narrate your task in your mind. For example if you are washing the dishes consider narrating the process for washing the dishes in your mind as you wash the dishes. This helps block out ruminating thoughts because you are intentionally using all of your awareness to complete your single task. This practice works! You can also use this practice of narration to be a more present parent or partner; you’ll notice your ability to engage in time together feeling increasingly happier.

Slow Down/ Rest Your Anxious Mind

When you are feeling anxious it can be hard to think clearly. Something that can help is to intentionally slow down. You may notice your productivity decreases when your anxious anyway so slowing down will likely give your new energy to complete your goals better. Be sure to take a break for rest and relaxation. Sometimes just choosing to sit down and rest for 20 minutes can make all the difference. Usually when you allow yourself some room to sit down you might realize how tired you feel. Rest for a moment, hydrate, and take intentional deep breaths.

You might find that coloring is a great way to shift your anxious mind when you take a rest break, you can also break out the play dough, or knitting supplies. It’s ideal if you need a break to reach for relaxing thought free activities if you need to buffer rumination or anxious thoughts.

The goal is really to create a space for calm and relaxation and to buffer negative thought loops where you will need time to resolve and problem solve. Try these tips and see how they can work to treat and reduce anxiety and negative thought loops. Remember the more you genuinely practice the better your tools become. When your tools for mental wellness gain strength so does your ability to feel more in control on your mood management.

MY #1 HOPE:

I hope you enjoyed learning about some of my tips to improve your wellness and health journey. Be sure to share your real life wellness questions below!

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Holistic Therapy Anxiety Treatment: How To Use An Acupressure Mat And Pillow + More Benefits

October 12, 2020 Brandi Jackson

Holistic Therapy Anxiety Treatment: How To Use An Acupressure Mat And Pillow + More Benefits

Anxiety can be immobilizing and distracting so much that it’s hard to think with clarity or any sense of direction. When we feel anxious, it’s a great reminder that we need to be able to access different tools to slow our racing mind down to return to a healthy state. Acupressure therapy is a great tool to treat anxiety holistically. It’s a simple and self governed process of simply getting your acupressure mat and pillow, then spending time lying on your mat and pillow to receive the therapeutic benefits, then storing your mat and pillow to returning to your day with improved refreshment.

What is Acupressure?

Acupressure is an ancient form of massage practiced in Chinese Medicine. The goal of acupressure massage has been to increase and encourage balanced flow of Qi (energy) through the meridian channels of the body.

In current history acupressure mats and pillows have also been created and utilized for the same purpose and practice. Now acupressure therapy can be achieved by lying on an acupressure mat and pillow minus the masseuse, which is helpful with everyone currently spending more time at home to prevent and reduce COVID risks.

Acupressure mats can be found online at holistic health stores and amazon.com. Some people will simply buy the acupressure mat without the pillow. I personally find the pillow and the mat combined to be most beneficial for therapeutic response for anxiety and stress management.

How Does Using An Acupressure Mat Feel?

Using an acupressure mat does take a little time to acclimate to as the pillow and the mat is covered in small plastic “needle like” points. When you lay on the mat it’s ideal to move slowly and gently while wearing as little layers between your skin and the mat for maximum application.

Once you find a comfortable position on the mat it’s ideal to stay in a resting position on the acupressure mat and pillow for 10-20 minutes for best anxiety and stress relief. Usually within the first 5 minutes of your acupressure session, you will feel an endorphin release of calm and soothing energy. This feeling is often maintained throughout the remaining time in your acupressure session.

How to Use Acupressure When Anxious Or Stressed

When you’re feeling anxious or stressed, using an acupressure mat can be helpful to calm yourself effectively. It may be harder to think clearly when anxious but planning ahead helps. Anxiety is an emotional experience that happens more than once and ideally you may even know the times and locations that your anxiety or stress may peak.

If you find yourself anxious at home, consider keeping your mat in a space where you can practice for example your bedroom may be ideal or near the living room couch. If you are working in an office space, consider keeping your acupressure mat at your desk or in your car to be used during your break. If you happen to have an office with a quiet room, consider using your acupressure mat while in the quiet room space.

Additional Benefits of Acupressure

We talked about the benefits of using an acupressure mat and pillow for anxiety and stress management and there’s a extended list of additional benefits you will gain from using acupressure therapy. Some additional benefits from using acupressure therapy include increased pain management, reduced neck and pack pain, reduced insomnia symptoms, fibromyalgia pain, and headache reduction.

MY #1 HOPE:

I hope you enjoyed learning about some of my tips to improve your wellness and health journey. Be sure to share your real life wellness questions below!

DID YOU LOVE IT?

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5 Unconventional Tips to Improve Your Depression & Energy Right Now!

December 6, 2019 Brandi Jackson

5 Unconventional Tips to Improve Depression & Energy Right Now!

Ever wake up and feel like your energy is already spent for the day and that getting out of bed is going to require major effort? Maybe you’re feeling sluggish and with cloudy thinking or have low patience to be with others because you know they’ll ask for more than you feel you can energetically offer. Maybe you find yourself coping with comfort foods or binge watching Netflix more often. This may be how depression looks for you and as a Licensed Therapist who has treated many clients who experience Depression; I know that being depressed can feel isolating, exhausting, and inevitable. In support, I’m sharing 5 unconventional tips to help you improve your depression and energy right now. Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have feel stuck any longer?

Make Up Your Mind

Did you know your mind has the power to produce thoughts that aren’t always true? When depression symptoms increase you may notice that your thoughts include a higher rate of negative thought cycles including anger, isolation, hopelessness, or worthlessness. When your mind increases negative thought patterns, it’s a best time to identify that you’re on the verge or in an active episode of depression.

Once you identify your experience of having depressed negative thoughts you have an opportunity to take action to shift those negative thought cycles to positive thought cycles. You can shift your negative thought cycles to positive thoughts by challenging the negative thoughts you experience with an intentional positive thought. For example if you ever think, “my family doesn’t care about me, what’s the use”, the alternative thought may be “I know my family loves me even though they show me differently than I would like”. Challenge your negative thoughts often in order to improve your depression experience. I know it may not be easy to believe your intentional positive thoughts at first but over time and with practice; thinking intentional and positive is a helpful tool to change how depression feels.

Schedule Your Phone Time

Yes, I know we all love our cell phones, laptops, Internet, and social media. And, what if being continually exposed to electronic devices throughout the day is making you more depressed? The more time you spend consuming media without having a structured schedule increases the probability of developing unhealthy coping behaviors for depression. Giving our screens too much attention can cost us the ability to concentrate, to maintain focus, to remember things clearly, to feel connected to ourselves, or to feel a sense of adequacy.

Scheduling your phone use not only helps you to avoid "ongoing phone in hand syndrome", but gives your mind a sense of order to know when and how long you will be using your devices or using social media. Scheduling time for using your phone can increase productivity. Scheduling phone time also will help improve your symptoms of depression, and boost your energy.

Set Your Home & Work Intentions

Before you’re actively in the midst of your day at home or at work, a great tool to organize your mind and reduce depression and low energy is to set your intentions. If you’re at home or work consider setting your intention for the day to help being home or at work and interacting with others feel mindful. Before opening emails or jumping into work projects think about how you want to experience the day. Setting intentions can be as simple as stating or writing “today will be a day with positive interactions, more laughter, and productivity”. When we practice setting intentions our mindset has the support in place to become collaborative and flexible to experience energetic and emotional success.

Change Your Focus in Nature

It may not always be a sunny day outside but being outdoors is an amazing way to reset your depression or experience of low energy. Many great things happen when you make a habit of going outside routinely. You get access to open space, which allows you to practice mindful observation. Mindful observation is a tool to explore your environment using your 5 senses of hearing, touching, seeing, smelling, and tasting. To make this tip work for depression choose to focus your attention on observing the objects or interactions that you can appreciate, help you feel joy, or that you find interesting.

Going outdoors also has a great benefit of increasing access to sunlight and Vitamin D, which is known to ward off depression and balance mood. Additionally, being outside and away from your primary environment can help your mind to rest from negative thoughts and reset your energy.

Scale Your Mood Daily

Depression is something that occurs on a spectrum of stability to acute intensity. Therapists often ask their client’s to select a number between 1 and 10 in order to better understand the stability or intensity of client symptoms. You can do this practice for yourself as well. Consider locating your depression on a scale of 1 to 10 when you start your day or as needed. Assessing and seeing where your depression is scaled numerically daily helps for you to assign the right coping practice to match your needs intentionally. If you find that your symptoms are low, you have feedback that what your doing is working. If your depression is increasing continually, it’s also helpful feedback to retrace your steps to determine the root issue and to create a plan to reduce your symptoms.

Practicing any one of these tips may be helpful for depression and low energy relief, but practicing more than 1 will definitely give you a greater advantage. As hard as it may feel to tell yourself that you can do much to change how you feel, please know that you can. Depression management means proactive daily attendance. Taking action is the first step. Count reading this article as a good sign you’re already working on feeling better and still have some hope left. Improving your depression may take effort at first and with continued practice and using my 5 unconventional tips you can feel empowered may find eventually your depression management is easy and simple. Don’t give up.

MY #1 HOPE:

I hope you enjoyed learning about some of my tips to improve your depression and increase energy. Be sure to share your real life wellness issues below! I will try to share more posts for you to help you keep up a healthy self care practice.

DID YOU LOVE IT?

SHARE THE LOVE!

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Sign up for your free ten-minute wellness consultation session if you want dialed in 1:1 online holistic therapy support to help you increase your energy and reduce your stress to have a glowing healthy and happy lifestyle.

Work with me

SCHEDULE YOUR FREE 10-30 MINUTE WELLNESS CONSULTATION FOR ONLINE HOLISTIC MENTAL HEALTH THERAPY OR WELLNESS COACHING SERVICES

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