Share your most successful coping strategies

[Juno]

This is a great topic. I find cooking really helps, even better than meditation. I find it painful to meditate in moments of great distress. It's like trying to flex a very sore muscle. Cooking just gets my mind off everything and the final product is always yummy and consoling. I think anything that keeps your mind busy that is more routine like knitting, even oh scuba diving, just gets you to momentarily focus on someting else, while the horrible moment passes.
It also helps for me to talk and get stuff off my mind.

[lilchrissy]

Welcomer and happy New year to all the new people Countering your thoughts in a TEA form everyday for just a couple minutes a day will lead to much less worry and anxiety. It takes a few weeks to start feeling the effects but it has gotten better and better for me since I started using them.

Excellent advice egriff! The TEA forms have become a staple in my life and I re-read the cbt book by sam obitz at least once a year just to keep on top of myself

[WW]

Welcomer and happy New year to all the new people Countering your thoughts in a TEA form everyday for just a couple minutes a day will lead to much less worry and anxiety. It takes a few weeks to start feeling the effects but it has gotten better and better for me since I started using them.

Excellent advice egriff! The TEA forms have become a staple in my life and I re-read the cbt book by sam obitz at least once a year just to keep on top of myself

I totally agree with both of you In fact I just finished lunch and five minutes on my TEA forms before I sign on here!
The boards are really hard to navigate now as I think a lot of my posts are missing now I could not even find Egriff's post you quoted here on this thread? So weird.... Onward and upward as they say.

[Paisleegreen]

Wow, some of these postings sure got mixed up! I haven't done much pencil work lately, I guess more posting on here and another website. My hands hurt these days to write, so I need to not be afraid to take some aspirin. My Anxiety symptoms have caused me not to take aspirin or Advil like I use to. I was able the other day after working outside in the sunshine, (it felt great and relieved some symptoms) I did finally took a 1/4 of an aspirin and did fine with it.

I really need to go do some walking, I wish the weather would warm a bit more. The day I did yard work it was in the high 50's. but that has changed back to normal February temps.

[egriff]

FInally I found one of my old postings I have a ton of post notifications but all the links in them are dead? Finally I went to the front page and started looking for familiar posts and thankfully that worked. For anyone who has posted to me I will try and find all my old posts and respond but depending how long it takes me to find them it may not be today as I am pressed for time, but I'll do my best

Welcome to all the new people. Lots of great advice and supportive people here! Hi to all my old friends as well.
Paisless you gotta put the pencil to paper and counter your thoughts in the TEA forms to get the full benefits of cbt
It's hard at first but becomes really easy and less time consuming over time

[Paisleegreen]

egriff--Yep, I need to go back to Dr David Burns Good Mood Therapy book's forms. I have copies of forms to use in his 10 Steps to Self Esteem Workbook. I'm glad you were able to find some of you postings. Paislee

[egriff]

Thx paislee!
I have not read that book by Burns but the exercise on self-esteem sounds intriguing. Please tell me a little more about it. I'm basically just countering my thoughts in Obitz's TEA forms every day and feeling great, but if I can add another exercise and feel better I am certainly open to it. Take care!

[lilchrissy]

Great input everyone
Paislee what other website do you post on that you mentioned in a note above? Is it a good site and more stable than this one?
Thx.

[AshleyZ]

Hey there,

I have a question. WHen you first began to counter your thoughts or knew that was the step you needed to do but hadn't done it before, did you panic about even countering them? I have been living with anxiety disorder for about 5 years and had no idea what it was so i got quite used to it. Now I realize after speaking with a counselor and others who suffered with anxiety that I needed to start changing my thoughts in order to get full recovery. Everytime I try to, or even try to think of doing it, I panic and feel crazy and almost impulsive that I want to avoid it, like the fear in general returns. Is this normal? Also I feel so powerless when I do try and feel its not making a difference because I 'feel' the fear so strongly still and I just end up panicking more. Is this normal at first? Does it get better? How can I begin to overcome the huge fear and trouble with these first steps?

[Paisleegreen]

Hi Ashley, I think I answered this question elsewhere, but I'll just do a short answer here. Yes, you will experience anxiety symptoms when you begin to work on them. But you will feel better...just work at Baby Steps, take some walks and tell yourself, you're going to be okay, you will get better.

Lil Chrissy, I'm just seeing this posting of yours, the other website had Anxiety as part of the title. My mind is not quite awake to recall the rest. I'll report back when the full name hits me. LOL! I've stayed away from it because it seemed so busy and big. Paislee