The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit by Risa Williams

Author:Risa Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2021-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Copyright © Risa Williams – The Ultimate Anxiety Toolkit – 2021

THE FUN DISTRACTION SIFTER

Here’s the thing about our brains: They are always searching for fun. When we worry, when we stress, when we overwork our brains, our brains cry out: “Please, please, give me a little fun right now!” This is because when pleasure is experienced, we get a brain chemical boost of endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. When any of these brain chemicals start to run really low, we start to feel stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, self-doubt, and/or a lack of confidence.

Clients often tell me they can’t relax because: “There’s always something I should be doing!” or “I feel like I’m never doing enough!” However, if we push ourselves too frequently without stopping to let our fun chemicals recharge, we might start to feel negative emotions that make it difficult to be productive or clearly focus on tasks.

The Fun Distraction Sifter was developed because I noticed that when people work too hard and don’t take enough time to reset themselves, they sometimes have trouble remembering what’s fun for them to do.

Finding your fun is just as important as taking action. To do this, we need to be mindful of the brain’s need for micro-fun breaks in between doing stressful stuff. It is during these micro-fun breaks, that we often gain the most insight and clarity about challenges or projects.

When you’re stuck in an anxiety loop, what you need is a fun distraction instead of a not-fun distraction to get you back in balance. But how do you find a distraction that is actually fun for you to do when you’re in this particular state of mind? This can be trickier than it sounds!

Fun distractions vary from person to person depending on what actually feels fun to them at that particular moment. For instance, a fun distraction for one person might be doing sit-ups because that makes them feel like they are taking charge of things, but for another person, doing sit-ups will clearly feel like a not-fun thing to do—it will just feel difficult and sweaty. Someone else might see hanging up new curtains in their bedroom as a fun decorating distraction; another person might see this as a cumbersome task that involves locating the screwdriver in the garage. The same is true for watching movies, playing video games, and browsing social media.

Only you know what is fun for you and what isn’t fun for you (and it can change frequently, even on a daily basis). When clients first make a fun distraction column, I like to ask them a follow-up question to make sure they are actually picking something fun for themselves to do at that particular moment. You would be surprised to find how many “sneaky-not-fun-distractions-masquerading-as-fun” ideas somehow make it onto people’s lists.

Here’s an example: A client says he wants to work on his resume as a fun distraction from thinking about work troubles.

Me: Is this really a fun thing for you to do right now?

Client

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.