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In this video, you will learn how to stop worrying in 2018. Everything I say in this video is backed by science.

How To Stop Worrying

Ever feel like you can’t turn your brain off? Worried about how to stop worrying? We all deal with this when life gets challenging.

There is a way to overcome worry that doesn’t involve alcohol or a straitjacket.






You Are Not Your Thoughts
What is mindfulness? In his book, The Mindfulness Solution, Ronald Siegel, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, gives a pretty good answer.

Via The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems:

The working definition of mindfulness that my colleagues and I find most helpful is awareness of present experience with acceptance.

You might say: But I’m aware. I’m present. I’m accepting.

And I’d say: No, you’re not.

You’re not aware; you’re staring at your iPhone.

You’re not present; you’re worrying about the future.

You’re not accepting; you’re shaking your fist at traffic because the world doesn’t match the vision in your brain of how it “should” be.

Very often, we’re all stuck in our heads.

We’re not taking the world in; we’re just listening to the stories we tell ourselves about the world, trusting the endless parade of thoughts flitting through our heads instead of actually paying attention to life around us.

One of the fundamental tenets of mindfulness is that we all take our thoughts wayyyyyy too seriously. We think our thoughts always mean something. In fact, we think we are our thoughts and our thoughts are us.

And that’s one of the reasons we worry so much and experience so many negative emotions — because we take our thoughts about the world more seriously than the world itself.

Via The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems:

Mindfulness practice brings all sorts of insights into the workings of the mind. Perhaps the hardest to grasp is the idea that thoughts are not reality. We’re so accustomed to providing a narrative track to our lives and believing in our story that to see things otherwise is a real challenge.

You know as well as I do that all kinds of ridiculous thoughts go through our heads. And sometimes you know not to trust them. When you’re tired, drunk, angry or sick you don’t take your thoughts as seriously.

Mindfulness says you should go a step further. Because you have lots of crazy or silly thoughts all the time. And they can make you anxious or bring you down.

The great psychologist Albert Ellis said we should dispute our irrational thoughts. Great advice — but it can be difficult. You have to be exceedingly rational for it to work.

And sometimes disputing those thoughts can be like a “Chinese finger trap” — the more you resist, the more they ensnare you.

So what can you do?



Observe. Don’t Judge.
Sometimes you can’t easily dispute those worrying thoughts. So mindfulness simply says: let them go.

Via The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems:

Mindfulness practice helps us avoid the trap of counterproductive thoughts by learning to let them go.

You can’t turn your brain off. And even if you meditate for years you can never fully clear your mind. But you can see those troublesome thoughts, recognize them, but not get tangled in believing them.

Via The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems:

Remember, this practice is not about emptying the mind, getting rid of difficult emotions, escaping life’s problems, being free of pain, or experiencing never-ending bliss. Mindfulness practice is about embracing our experience as it is—and sometimes what is can be unpleasant at the moment… We usually try to feel better by decreasing the intensity of painful experiences; in mindfulness practice, we work instead to increase our capacity to bear them.

And scientific research shows this really works. People feel better and are more engaged with their work after 8 weeks of mindfulness practice.

Via The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems:

Dr. Davidson and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn recruited a group of pressured workers in a biotechnology firm and taught half of them mindfulness meditation for three hours per week over an eight-week period. They compared this group to a similar group of coworkers who were not taught meditation. On average, all of the workers tipped to the right in their prefrontal cortical activity before taking up meditation. However, after taking the eight-week course,