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Areas › Worry and anxiety › Breaking the worry loop
Arguing with an anxious thought while the alarm is still ringing is heavy work and it rarely goes well. Reclassifying it is lighter: this is what my body says when it is braced for something. Say that, then get on with what you were doing and let the thought make its claim without you agreeing to it.
We know what his soul whispers to him (Quran 50:16). The whispering mind is spoken of as a known thing, not as evidence that something is wrong with you.
ق
وَلَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ وَنَعۡلَمُ مَا تُوَسۡوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفۡسُهُۥۖ وَنَحۡنُ أَقۡرَبُ إِلَيۡهِ مِنۡ حَبۡلِ ٱلۡوَرِيدِ
We created man––We know what his soul whispers to him: We are closer to him than his jugular vein––
Qur’an 50:16read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Across two different treatments for generalised anxiety disorder, increases in decentering, meaning the ability to stand back from a thought and see it as a thought, went along with improvement in both. That points to standing back as a shared active ingredient rather than something particular to one method. It is an analysis of mechanism inside trials, so it shows what travelled with improvement rather than proving it caused it.
Sarah A. Hayes‐Skelton; Amber Calloway; Lizabeth Roemer; Susan M. Orsillo (2014). Decentering as a potential common mechanism across two therapies for generalized anxiety disorder.. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Treating a thought as a signal from the body rather than as information takes its authority away.
Three moves, in this order: notice what is happening, settle the body, then put your attention somewhere useful. Short enough to remember when you are already going.
Some people never ask for help because they assume everyone's head is like theirs. If yours has been running like this since you were small, it does not feel like a condition. It feels like being you.
A hammering heart during anxiety is the body doing what it does when it is braced, not a sign that it is being damaged. For a lot of people that single piece of information is the thing that finally lets the panic drop.