Posts tagged with "Anxiety"
Anxious thoughts can feel urgent, important, and impossible to ignore. But what if they’re just noise? This piece explores how taking your mind less seriously can quietly reduce its hold over you.
Financial stress often leads to avoidance, from unopened bills to delayed decisions. This article explains how avoidance works, why it persists, and how gradual, manageable steps can help reduce financial anxiety and build confidence.
A 13-year-old Irish boy swam four hours through rough seas to save his family. His instinct was not to panic or dwell on what might go wrong, but to act — and to steady his mind by focusing on happy memories. My latest Southern Star column explores how research suggests both matter more than we think.
Always on edge even when things are fine? Chronic worriers often stay tense to avoid emotional shocks, a pattern called contrast avoidance. My latest column explores recent research showing that practising simple savouring techniques – pausing, noticing, and extending positive moments – can help break the cycle, reduce anxiety, and make calm feel safe.
Reducing suffering matters, but it’s only half of mental health. My latest Southern Star article looks at recent research showing that well-being grows not just by removing pain, but by adding back pleasure and engagement in daily life.
We all seek reassurance on occasion, but what about when reassurance-seeking is persistent, excessive, or even compulsive? In this column, I explain why reassurance-seeking maintains and ultimately worsens anxiety.
'You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety’. Those words from author Elizabeth Gilbert will strike a chord with anyone who strives to control the big and small details of daily life. My latest column explores how attempting to control everything keeps us on edge. Checking, overthinking, over-planning, rehearsing – what we think of as being in control is often just anxiety wearing a convincing mask.
Savouring life’s joyful moments seems like the natural thing to do, yet many people do the opposite – they downplay, dismiss, or distance themselves from joy. In the first of two columns on this subject, I ask: why do many people dampen positive emotions?
We all have our own emotional style, and feel some emotions more strongly and more routinely than others. My latest columns explores how many of us have one dominant or default emotion – the one we return to most easily.
In my last column, I explored why some people seek criticism to confirm their negative self-views. In this follow-up piece, let’s shift gears and look at how to break free from this cycle and embrace a healthier way of relating to yourself and others.