Lately we had some personal issues that were very stressful and again I started getting some of the usual symptoms of high anxiety. I tried all of the usual methods and thinking processes but was still struggling. I flipped through my books, watched my videos, and listened to audio books – still never really getting it under control.

What finally got it all under control was the classic thought process of detachment and “being the witness”. ”Being the witness” means sort of imagine a kind and loving witness watching you and keeping you safe. Continue Reading »

What do you do when you get an anxiety attack or high stress levels out of the blue? Well, we’ve been through this many times on Sane Advice haven’t we. We just accept the current situation and accept the fact that we ALL have some “bad days” no matter how centered and relaxed with “think” we are.

So last post I was actually writing in the middle of a full blown panic attack which was quite the experiment for me. I could still think and type words on my computer, but I was literally in a huge anxiety fog or cloud. I tried to analyze what was going on in my life, and figure out why I was so freaked out all of a sudden. I looked at my personal life, my relationships, my sleep patterns, eating patterns, exercise routine (or lack thereof), my financial situation, my fun factor, my business, my medication – my health, and on and on and on and on. Of course thinking about it didn’t help much – just made it worse of course.

Then all of a sudden it lifted. For no rhyme or reason, my fear, extreme anxiety, and stress lifted. So out of the blue, the stress came on hard, and then the stress just left. The only thing I did different that seemed to help allot was the meditation I started doing with my brother and sister-in-law. they had just come back from Whistler, B.C., where they went to a Deepak Chopra event that lasted 6 days and nights. They went deep into the practices of relaxation, physical and mental centering, and you name it. They are meditating twice a day now, and it has changed their lives for the better. I will also be meditating going forward because it did make a huge difference in how I felt. Meditation may be the reason my anxiety just floated away out of the blue.

One thing I noticed before the stress came, was my “stinkin’ thinkin”. For some reason I was telling myself that everything I saw was crap. No matter how much I tried to remind myself of the truth – the truth being that everything is actually beautiful and perfect, which makes the ego mind very angry. In fact, when the ego mind is angry and making itself miserable, just hearing the truth drives it crazy.

I know enough now about how the ego mind works, that I should know better than to let it run amuck – right! – right!? ……… wrong. We all have our days (and sometimes weeks) when our egos take full control of our minds and bodies. When the ego is having full rein of our day(s) it goes hard like a starving bear in bakery.

I told my wife what was going on, and I said to her,

You know when the universe told my ego about enlightenment, it thought it heard entitlement.

She said,

Did you just make that up?

We both agreed that was kinda funny, so i thought I would share the line with you. You see, life is strange – we wake up one morning and decide that everything is pure bunk, and we completely throw out everything that is real and true. We know that this is the ego sensing some weakness, and pouncing into have a hay-day with misconceptions, exaggerations, fear, anger, and all around STINKIN’ THINKIN’. Now I didn’t make up that old phrase. That was something I heard my mother use after her Al-Anon meetings and readings.

I can see that in the future of my own life, these bouts with stinkin’ thinkin’ will be less and less frequent. I truly believe everything I say here on the blog, and I truly believe what Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Michael Beckwith, the Dali Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Jesus, and Buddha are saying. The step that I (and we) need to take is from believing to KNOWING.

We can read all of the blogs and books, go to seminars, watch DVDs, and listen to CDs until we saturate our minds with the truth – that helps – I’m not saying it doesn’t, but we have to get to stage of knowing, and not just believing. This is where meditation and lifestyle comes in. This is when discipline comes in. This is what the ego dislikes intensely.

The ego still wants to be lazy, sleep in, eat whatever it wants, never exercise, watch T.V. for many hours at a time, smoke, take drugs, drink alcohol excessively, and complain whenever possible about everything it sees. When you change these lifestyle patterns with discipline knowing comes in and believing becomes concrete.

Imagine never watching the news, reading a newspaper, or sad and violent television programming. Imagine never filling your body with cigarette smoke, or chewing tobacco. Imagine never drinking more than one glass of wine in a two month period. Imagine meditating twice a day for 20-30 minutes. Imagine exercising every day. Imagine only eating good food and never to excess. Just imagine.

For most of us humans floundering around, we have trouble imagining the above, because we have never lived liked that, and we shudder (or should I say our egos shudder) at such a lifestyle. I just read the above paragraph back to myself and it scares the crap out of me! (just kiddin’) But just imagine how we would feel. I read that and I think of how much that would change the lives of the people around me. I would be living a much different life of sure.

My suggestion to all (and to myself) is to slowly start bringing that lifestyle into reality. Start by eating “a little bit” better. Start meditating 5 minutes a day. Take a really short walk around the block every couple of days. If you smoke cigarettes, try cutting back a few cigarettes a day. You can do that by not smoking from pure habit, and only when you are really having a nicotine withdrawal reaction. Just start slow, and move towards healthier habits. DO NOT go hard and make yourself miserable by infuriating the ego. Be kind to your ego and treat like the spoiled little whiner child that it is. Slowly take your ego by the hand and compliment it on it’s efforts. Tell your ego that you are just going to back off the unhealthy habits “a little bit”, and tell your ego you have no intention of getting rid of it. Tell the ego the truth – it will always be there and a part of you, but it doesn’t have to fear anything. Say to your ego,

Everything is going to be O.K.

Which it is. The ego does like to hear these words too. Don’t forget that the ego is frightened at the prospect of ANY change at all. It fears goodness and happiness changes, it fears badness and unhappiness changes too. It wants everything to stay the same, because it’s barely hanging on to accepting what it real and what is now.

So when you are making these changes in your life, little by little, remind your ego that everything is going to be O.K. You can use affirmations which you can repeat over in your head. These affirmations are a wonderful method of quieting the frightened ego and it’s childish fears.

So when you see that out of the blue, you are feeling frightened, angry, unsatisfied with what is, or just plain sad and depressed, just know that it’s the ego at work, and it’s days and hours are surely numbered – and they are. The ego’s total control usually only lasts a day or so in most humans, before reality sets in and they begin to feel better.

For those of us who have BIGGER egos, we can go into the pain for weeks and sometimes months at a time. We end up sometimes taking medication just to calm ourselves down. We sometimes consumer unhealthy things like alcohol, drugs, and massive amounts of nicotine to try and feel better. Those of us with the big egos will suffer more, but we TOO swing out of the funk and begin “getting real again”. That’s when we can start making some gradual changes towards a better lifestyle.

Gotta run – gonna go play some golf today.

Love ya – Jacob

Stress management for married men is much easier than for the average stay- home mother and homemaker. Why? Because working men can, more often than not, get away from the stresses of raising children, and dealing with the sensitive problems of home. Men generally have the opportunity to be alone and find time to touch base again with their inner selves and their inner silence.

Of course women are working at the office or in the field more, at the same time men are staying home with the kids – but still, the vast majority of home in the western world have a working father and a homemaker being Mom.

So with the extra time alone, men have the chance to get away for some peace of quiet. But alas! There are reasons why men suffer from anxiety as well.

Young Married Men Who Suffer From Anxiety

Unfortunately younger men often make bad choices such as drinking or recreational drugs, lack of sleep, and bad company – period.

Young men who suffer from anxiety, some would ask?! (and I’ve been there) You would think unlikely, but all it’s takes is a vivid imagination and some basic perceptions out of whack from reality, and young men can easily find themselves in the midst of high anxiety, panic attacks, and depression.

Never forget that young men have allot of pressure (self applied and society applied) to deal with. Jobs, education, earnings, parental expectations, and mating competition, add to the pressures on young men, and when you see the reality of these pressures, you can easily see how young men can fall to worry and fear.

For young men they are not well served to be “out of loop” in their community, or move away from their home base, and surely being out of their supportive community.

If a young man is married with children he can be under a HUGE amount of the pressure to stay in a job that he may hate, feed his children, and support his family. Young women also work more and more, and the amount of duel income homes is increasing steadily. Nevertheless, in the breakdown of stress in American homes, young men are not immune due to perceived ideas of their personal freedoms and carefree lifestyle.

In fact, I remember being a young man, when I overheard a group of ladies dining and talking. They were talking about how easy it is to be man, and basically they had no mercy for any kind of plight a young man might be facing.

If you are a young man suffering from anxiety, or know someone who is a young man suffering from anxiety, you can overcome stress and anxiety with some simple actions.

• make sure you AVOID getting wrapped in your self image. Don’t judge yourself on societal standards, such as how much money you make, what kind of degree you have, where you work, what your new wife or girlfriend looks like, what kind of car you drive, and what kind of home you have. This kind of thinking is purely egoic and WILL cause you and those around you to suffer.
• clean up your so-called friend base. Realize who your real friends are and avoid all of those who are only interested in a party, or superficial distractions. You will find the madness and chaos in your life will decrease dramatically with this advice.
• avoid substances that run down your energy levels – alcohol in excess, nicotine in excess, food in excess, drugs in excess.
• get your sleep even if you think your young body can “handle it”

Middle Aged Married Men Who Suffer From Anxiety

Middle aged men have a better opportunity to reduce their anxiety because they may have more time to work with. More time perhaps because children are ususally out of the house and living on their own.

The stress management plan for reducing anxiety in Mom’s and homemakers is a challenge due the amount of time our dearest Mom’s of society give SO much of their time and life to their children and the family unit. The challenge here is TIME and SPACE.

This is the toughest life situation to handle if you want to find reduce anxiety. Mothers are the only TRUE warriors of the world. Being a Mom is a quest and a mission from God. Society must learn to support and understand the Mother’s need more support. Everyday that you get through as a Mother is nothing less than God’s grace in action.

Without going into great lengths on the plight (and blessing) of being a Mom, let’s get into the reality of a true anxiety reduction plan and management system.

Clearing Time and Space and How To Make the Very Best of Free Time

Finding the time to read, listen to inspirational DVDs, go for a walk, meditate, do Yoga, Tia chi, etc., is difficult for a busy Mother and homemaker, but it can be done right NOW.

The trick is sleep. You must organize your day and nights around your sleep and alone time. If you are a single mother, and have children who are still at home and not in school, the challenge is the greatest. If you can find ANY help from friends, family members, or babysitters be sure to do it.

You will have learn to stop wasting time watching hours and hours of TV, or socializing at length. They key is getting to bed at an early hour so you can get up early before the sun comes up and your world gets noisy and busy again.

Get up at least 1-2 hours before your children wake up and get your invaluable alone time. In that alone time you are going read books, watch videos, listen to audio programs, and find your inner stillness again – in other words, find yourself again.

If you drop everything and get to bed early and do this you will create plan and routine whereby you are always connected to yourself throughout the day. The first thing to do is begin reading important works of literature that begin guiding you to enlightenment. I recommend Michael Bernard Beckwith’s “Spiritual Liberation”, Wayne Dyer’s “Power of Intention”, and Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth”. If you read these three books twice (or three times) each you will begin to see a strange and beautiful shift in your consciousness. I really didn’t notice a difference until I read these 3 books twice each, and listened to their audio CDs.

If you cannot find this time to commune with stillness of the morning sunset, then at least buy these audio programs for you car, and begin the journey. You will learn why you are stressed, and how to reduce your stress to a very low level.

The meditation, yoga, exercise, and/or Tia Chi will come after you are well on your spiritual journey of enlightenment, but first you need to reprogram yourself back to the perfect being you REALLY are. These teaching will guide you to yourself again – I guarantee it. (this is a non-profit site for anxiety reduction – we do not make any money from our recommendations)

You will be reunited with your TRUE essence which lies DEEP into the stillness of your body temple, and learn to turn off your worried mind and defuse your dramatic ego. You will learn to appreciate the most mundane tasks, and understand how lucky you really are, even amidst the most stress filled and anxious situations in daily life.

Until you make the time during the morning hours to commune with stillness, and turn OFF your minds busy thinking patterns, you will not reduce your anxiety enough to make a lasting difference. Yes, you can exercise all you want, and that will help with your anxiety, but it’s not going to fully bring you “out of your mind”.

I know it sounds a little strange but you want to go “out of your mind”. That is where the reality of peace, stillness, silence, and universal energy is noticed. This is when you can feel your true self.

Mothers Sometimes Have To Be Very Creative

So in the above I give a quick example on how to and where to find time for yourself, but that just might not work for you. I would suggest that if you don’t have time to read, be sure to listen to the audio books that I mentioned above. If you do it in the car, you are not losing a second of time, because you have to drive sometimes right.

Once you digest all this material you will start seeing a change in how you feel. You will have a big reduction in anxiety, and you will have your old self back.

If you want to see a considerable reduction in anxiety you have to find some sort of stress management system to practice. I don’t mean buying some kind of product, because everything you need to reduce extreme anxiety is on the Internet for free.

If you have ever experienced a full blown panic attack before you will be VERY motivated to find a way to reduce your stress significantly, and bring an End To Suffering as The Buddha called it.

In this new century we are seeing and large increase in the numbers of people suffering from stress and anxiety. It’s pretty well an epidemic, and there is a reason for it, but right now we just want to discuss the correct way to reduce your anxiety through a stress management plan. First let’s discuss how to create your OWN stress management plan.

Stress Management Plan for Anxiety Reduction

The problem with the current western medical profession is that there is very little in the way of providing a reduction in anxiety of people (not going to call anxiety sufferers patients because is suggested there is something wrong with you, where the is not) – except for anti-anxiety medication. Why? Because every person is different and every person has a different lifestyle, with different life experiences and a different personal view point. So how could anyone make a pill or medication that can fix EVERYONE like an antibiotic for a simple infection.

So you can create your own custom stress management plan based on your schedule, lifestyle, and “life situation”. Below is a list of lifestyle situations and I hope there is example that is very similar to yours.

• married mother and homemaker
• married fathers
• single woman living with or without roommates employee
• single man living with or without roommates employee
• teenager/young adult employee
• teenager/young adult unemployed
• business owner(s)
• retired man over the age of 50
• retired woman over the age of 50

We will discuss the different stress management plans best suited for the above basic life situation. Click the links for each example.