YSK When anxiety causing thoughts arise, start mentally describing objects or actions you see in your vicinity, as if you were narrating a story. This will distract your brain from spiraling down that dreaded black hole.

LPT mods removed my advice, because I broke the rules and posted advice about mental heatlh. Reposting here, because I really want to share this useful tip with others.The idea is to make the voice in your head act as a narrator to things that are happening around you. This turns your focus outwards rather than inwards. Lots of anxiety arises from too much focus on oneself.Edit: There's a recently coined word that kind of relates to this that I would like to add onto this thread. It goes hand in hand with this advice. It's called "sonder":n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. via /r/YouShouldKnow http://ift.tt/2huw4LC

LPT mods removed my advice, because I broke the rules and posted advice about mental heatlh. Reposting here, because I really want to share this useful tip with others.

The idea is to make the voice in your head act as a narrator to things that are happening around you. This turns your focus outwards rather than inwards. Lots of anxiety arises from too much focus on oneself.

Edit: There's a recently coined word that kind of relates to this that I would like to add onto this thread. It goes hand in hand with this advice. It's called "sonder":

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.