Anxiety & Mood | Feelings

Anxiety: Worry hour strategies for unproductive thougths

This post continues on what to do during the worry hour, more specifically what to do after identifying which of your worry-themes are productive and/or unproductive, se definitions introduced in earlier posts. After identifying and analysing your unproductive/unhelpful thoughts/themes according to earlier posts, you can choose among several strategies. Here comes exposure, a favourite within…

Healthy Routines | Mindfulness | Stress

Mindfulness: The breathing anchor exercise part 1/3

The second of 3 main exercises within mindfulness is the breathing anchor. The name comes from using the breath as an anchoring point since our breathing is always with us and hence we can use it to anchor us in the present moment. This is a seated exercise, in this version in total 5 minutes….

Burn out | Healthy Routines | Relationships | Stress

Stress management: 2d building block part 2 – minimize stress sources

There are 3 important building blocks of stress management: 1) regulate you stress level, se techniques in earlier post 2) handle stress sources and 3) use stress management habits. The second building block, handle your stress sources, is about 2 main components: 1) secure sufficient recovery 2) minimize stress sources or their intensity as well…

Life goals | Self image

Life goals – Important questions to your time line

Last week we worked with the timeline. This week we will analyze it for a last time. Take a few minutes and take in your timeline. How does it feel? Can you some unexpected coincidences? Now, ask the following questions: What had changed at the time you have a low and high mark respectively? Did…

Feelings | Healthy Routines | Mindfulness | Self image

Reflections, rest and celebration – Creativity

Another important part of this day is to access your creativity. Creativity feeds the feelings interest and joy and hence increase positive emotions which often also increase wellbeing. It is also a mindful activity where the essence is being in the here and now. Creative activities can also impact how you view yourself as well…

Burn out | Feelings | Healthy Routines | Stress

Feelings – Anger

Unheard emotions can lead to both physical and psychological symptoms. There are several emotions that we who work with psychological treatment often encounter problems with. One of the most prominent is anger. Maybe this partly depends on cultural norms and thoughts of proper adult behaviour, that anger is only for children until old enough to…

Self image | Self-esteem

Self-esteem: self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence and self-efficacy

There are many different parts of the self, all influencing our wellbeing. Here comes an attempt to explain the subtle differences behind important self-concepts, where even the researchers still do not agree: Self-confidence, our trust in our ability to perform certain activities, tasks etc. leading to abilities or achievements and self-esteem, a multidimensional concept including…

Anxiety & Mood | Healthy Routines | Relationships | Stress

Anxiety: Worry hour Part 3

This post continues on what to do during the worry hour, more specifically identifying if your thoughts are productive and/or unproductive, which was introduced in earlier posts. During the worry hour, write down for every theme what is the theme, what the disturbing thought, the what if… and the result/catastrophe that you fear, if it…

Anxiety & Mood | Healthy Routines | Mindfulness | Stress

Mindfulness: Body-scan part 4/4

Here comes the last parts of the body-scan exercise, in total 10 minutes long. This is the essence/instructional parts of one version of the 3 major meditations within mindfulness. The body-scan usually lasts over 45 minutes with long parts of silence. In my research I have found that even this shorter version, together with 2…

Anxiety & Mood | Burn out | Healthy Routines | Stress

Stress – The 2d building block: Part 1 – Handle your stress sources

There are 3 important building blocks of stress management: 1) regulate you stress level, se techniques in earlier post 2) handle stress sources and 3) use stress management habits. The second building block, handle your stress sources, is about 2 main components: 1) secure sufficient recovery and 2) minimize stress sources or their intensity as…