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Waterluvian 2 days ago

Yeah absolutely! That’s the challenge I’ve seen with anxiety (I’m painting with a broad brush here, and I’m no authority). You can’t outright disable the smoke alarms because sometimes they’re actually working.

mdallastella 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's the difference between functional and disfunctional anxaety. The trick is to figure out which is which.

Loughla 2 days ago | parent [-]

I am incapable of knowing which is which.

The problem is my rate of correct anxiety guesses is too high. I'm right a lot. But the ridiculous stuff sneaks in as well. This leads to me being constantly anxious and just hating my professional life.

How to fix? Sweet Lord in heaven. How to fix?

aGHz 2 days ago | parent [-]

Keep an anxiety log for a few months. In my experience, this feeling of correctness is a retrospective impression that relies heavily on confirmation bias, and in reality is nowhere near that high. Either way, a concrete log will confirm or deny it.

If it's truly correct, then I'd say it's not anxiety and that you're probably more attuned to subtle cues. You can learn to pay conscious attention to these cues, evaluate them, and decide strategically if you want to act on them. The idea is to keep your advantage without the negative emotional reaction.

If it's not that accurate, having proof can help you internalize that you're just going through some particular emotional process, without according it any undue weight. Having let go of that, you can start picking up mechanical tricks for anxiety management, like breathing techniques.

mdallastella 2 days ago | parent [-]

^^^ This ^^^

Also, a CBT (Cognitive behavioral therapy) with a professional helps a lot.