AUDIO – MINDFULLY –
Aug. 17, 2023 – Research shows that activities that induce a state of flow—intense focus and absorption in a challenging task—cause the brain’s self-monitoring centers to deactivate. This ‘flow state’effectively silences your inner critic and allows complete immersion in the task or activity at hand without self-judgment.
Seek out leisure activities like cooking, gardening, writing, cleaning, or exercise that fully engage your skills at an optimal level. The more time you spend activating flow states, the less mental bandwidth anxiety has to creep in.
Thought Flagging: Anxiety frequently fuels recurring negative thoughts and cognitive distortions. Thought flagging involves noticing these anxious thought patterns when they arise and objectively labeling them. For example, instead of spiraling about a mistake and overthinking what could go wrong, you’d say, “There’s my perfectionism thought again” or “I’m catastrophizing about my presentation.” Simply recognizing and naming thoughts like “I’m going to completely mess up my work presentation” helps diffuse their power and emotional charge. Flagging anxious thoughts consistently builds self-awareness and weakens their influence.
