You often hear advice from all around you. On social media, people preaching this or that diet, exercise routine or habit plan. Your friends and family telling you what you should do and how you should improve. Colleagues insisting that this meditation technique is the best.
But how can you possibly know what actually works with all this noise around you? Of course there is a lot of useful information out there, but if it’s being drowned by cacophony, it becomes overwhelming to know what is truly real.
That’s why I’ve decided to debunk these psychological theories that are so often preached, but much less often practiced.
Through speaking about personal experience and doing research, I am now opening up the floor to other experts and people on interest on the topics.
Instead of just asking you guys to reply your thoughts to me, I will be featuring your response directly on my blog, for hundreds to read. I want to spread the word of what works, so if you’re in, let’s get started!
The first topic is: The Best Relief for Anxiety.
You hear and see advice about relieving anxiety everywhere. In fact, according to a paper written in Science Direct, “Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental health conditions worldwide, leading to significant personal and societal burdens (Javaid et al., 2023)”.
There are several theories to why this is the case, as well as people often using the term colloquially “I’m so anxious” or “this gives me anxiety” even if they have not been officially diagnosed. I’m not interested in getting deeper into the topic of misdiagnosis, because that would be missing the point. What we should be focusing on is how are we supposed to deal with this feeling, to live a happier life not plagued by worrying?
Well, something I recently learned on a 14 day workshop in Peru recently, is how to finally relieve my anxious feelings.
I’ve never personally been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, but I think most people can admit they have felt anxious or worried at some point in their life, even if there was nothing to worry about. Turns out, there is something to worry about. And the simple answer is, as soon as you find this out, you are so much closer to becoming more at peace.
What causes anxiety is cognitive dissonance. This is a very common definition widespread in psychology, and I will give you my take on it.
Cognitive dissonance is defined as “a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions.” For example, you are running late to a meeting when you see a homeless man begging for food. You ignore him because you are in a rush, however you hold guilt inside of you because you consider your action to be misaligned with your morals (your cognition).
Therefore, being confronted by situations that challenge your beliefs leads you to think “I work hard for my money, so that homeless man should’ve made a bigger effort if he wanted money”. Your internal cognition changes (regarding homeless people) so that it is more aligned with your action (ignoring the homeless person). We do this to reduce this dissonance in our body, this discomfort, this anxiety.
Now imagine you face hundreds of situations like this everyday. You want to speak up in a meeting but get anxious you will have a stupid idea. You want to relax on the bus after a long day but an old lady needs your seat so you reluctantly get up. Your kids are yelling at you and misbehaving and you want to hit them to they “get the message” but you just use the “gentle approach” against every bone in your body.
These resistances to what we are truly feeling inside build up over time, and even though practices like meditation and sports (and drugs, as many people choose as the easy way out) can offer temporary relief, the only way to truly reduce your anxiety long-term is to focus on how your actions are misaligned with your beliefs, and make a real choice on which one(s) you will change.
It’s quite simple: either change your belief, or your action.
If this choice is conscious, pre-meditated and you stay firm with it, your anxiety will have no place, because you will be confident with the decisions you are making. However, anytime you fall back on the easy action or belief, you will start feeling that anxiety again. If you are curious on how to actually change your beliefs, whoever impossible that may feel, I have managed to do so about myself, slowly but surely. So of course, just write me!
I hope this blog can make you feel something, whether it resonated with you, reminded you of something or you plainly disagree with it, I encourage you to write back. I will choose the response that is the most thought out and potentially even contrarian, and I will post it on my website, anonymously or not, as the writer decides.
My goal is to make topics like these open for discussion to allow people to make choices for themselves and to stop believing everything they are reading online. I want people to open their minds and believe there is a way to know the truth, and I am willing to help you get those tools, if you stick with me.
This project has many layers, and every time I will show you different things I have learned in the past weeks that have truly changed my life.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, don’t be shy!
With love,
Nastia
