New to mindfulness, suffer with anxiety and have some questions

[Ben1989]

Hi all,

I won't bore you with too much detail but I suffer with Health Anxiety. I've had this for two years where my anxiety has switched from MS, to ALS, to dementia to suicide. I also have a daughter who is 16 months old so my anxiety has heightened a little bit. Currently, my anxiety has led to depression (but not clinically confirmed). I'm having CBT currently and I've had an unfortunate wait of 18 months so it has worsened as I've waited and my depression is a case of me feeling that I won't be around for my daughter and being sick of feeling anxious. My anxiety then went to suicide as I drew a link between depression and I thought worse case and got absolutely petrified of it leading to suicide. It's this subject my therapist is helping with and says I'm not suicidal it's just the current subject my anxiety has latched onto.

Anyway, I was introduced into the idea of meditation mindfulness from a past sufferer on an anxiety forum (nomorepanic). He said it cured his depression and severely reduced his anxiety. I have started on the Headspace app (I'm not sure how it's rated on this forum) but everything the guy says really hits home so I relate very well to it. Currently early days in the 'Anxiety' pack of the app.

Just thought I'd join the forum, gain some more personal tips and a forum to ask any questions where I may be struggling with certain practices.

I perform my mindfulness exercises once per day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes, in the evening, sometimes before bed but I need to nail day a routined time as I'm a person who works off routines.

I have some questions to begin

1) After performing my mindfulness exercise what is the aim for the rest of the day? Do I continue to concentrate on the breath all day? How do people perform work at work when applying mindfulness? Is it case of concentrate purely on the job at hand? Just like being distracted when breathing?

2) How often do people perform mindfulness each day or what would you recommend?

3) Does it take a while before you start to see serious benefits? I am not being ignorant to this question sorry. I appreciate it is no quick fix?

4) Lastly, do you think mindfulness is something good to apply to my condition?

Thanks everybody

[Gareth]

Hello and welcome to the forum! Thank you for your interesting first post.

I am sorry to hear of all the difficulties that you have been having with your anxiety.

The way that mindfulness can help with anxiety can be difficult to comprehend. The mindfulness way is not to try and eliminate anxiety, rather to welcome it in. This can help, I assure you. Take a look at some of our anxiety blogs:

https://www.everyday-mindfulness.org/ca ... h/anxiety/

I'll try to answer your questions, although I'm not a mindfulness teacher, merely a committed practitioner.

1. Try not to worry so much about the rest of the day. Commit yourself to daily meditation and perhaps some reading. Over time you should hopefully notice that the mindfulness that you are developing during meditation begins to spill over into the rest of the day. Informal mindfulness is great and it can really support your practice, but it's impossible to be mindful al the time.

2. I started meditating at 5 minutes per day and added another minute whenever I felt ready.

3. I think that people differ greatly as to when they see benefits. My opinion is that it's good to drop any kind of striving for this benefit or another and get practising.

4. I know that mindfulness has helped many people with anxiety.

[Ben1989]

Hi Gareth,

Thank you for the links, I'll have a look through them all soon. It's always good to learn about success stories.

I'm beginning to learn (and the Headspace app makes this clear early on) that mindfulness will never remove thoughts, it is merely creating a space between the thoughts and our reaction.

My own interpretation is when we think 'oh it's cold out'. We don't think anymore of it, we don't react to it, it is merely noticed and then passes. Again, my interpretation, is that the aim is to do this with our intrusive thoughts also.

I always look forward to my mindfulness sessions. They are 20 minutes in a 30-day anxiety pack.

[Gareth]

Headspace should guide you through nicely. If you are happy with it, then keep going.

This blog is particularly good, written by someone who experiences a lot of anxiety:

https://www.everyday-mindfulness.org/ma ... y-anxiety/

You'll be amazed at how often you are down the rabbit-hole of thought before you notice.

[Ben1989]

Thanks again Gareth,

I'm down a rabbit hole at the moment to be honest. I'm constantly battling with whether I truly am leading to "suicidal" or "it's just my anxiety". I have some therapy tools from my CBT but sometimes when I get triggered quite strongly it's all cards out of the window, almost.

Last night I saw a social media post about a guy who was writing about his brother who took his life. I was triggered as the brother "exercised, had career goals etc". I guess what I think is if it can happen to this guy it can happen to me.

I find it hard to find mindfulness when this lingering subtle panic exists in my body. Are there any tips you could give?

Side note: I hadn't practiced mindfulness for some days until last night (before my trigger) and it's amazing how difficult I found it to let thoughts come and go. It truly is a matter of practicing.

[JonW]

Hi Ben.
I have PM'd you.
All best,
Jon

[BronteFan]

Hi Ben!

I've also suffered from anxiety & mindfulness has helped me a lot.

1. After my meditation I try to keep mindfulness in my day by only looking at the past to learn from mistakes I made & answer questions I get asked & only looking to the future when action planning, I also try to concentrate on what I'm doing when I'm doing it & only multi-tasking when necessary or when practising hygge when I either read or watch a film wrapped up in a fleece blanket having a cup of tea or drinking chocolate which is a lot different to the multi-tasking I'd do before where I'd read, type/write, listen to music & sing at the same time.

2. Daily is best but it's not always possible.

3. How long it takes to get results depends on the person. I went from being moderate-severely anxious to being normal in 4 months but I'd learnt meditation at school before being advised to explore mindfulness & I was also practising hygge which has helped me a lot. As I've been doing both together I can't say how much my results are due to mindfulness & how much hygge. I dropped hygge for a short period & found I started relapsing & the same goes for meditation. It's not a quick-fix solution because there are none. It's a life-style change.

4. Definitely.