LEAVING WORRYLAND (An Essential Guide to Combating Anxiety and OCD)

INTRO

We all know what it is to have a healthy immune system.

If we catch a cold or cut our finger, we fight off disease quickly. But if we have a compromised immune system, even the smallest virus could put us in the hospital.

Our minds are no different. If our mental immune system is healthy, we are not as irritated or upset by setbacks or irrational thoughts. That means less intense emotional problems like anxiety. 

Recognize that anxiety and OCD symptoms worsen as our mental immunity is weakened. Below are 4 keys to maintaining a strong mental immunity. Along with the individuals themselves; parents, spouses, and friends of those with OCD and anxiety are encouraged to build these up for themselves so that they can be calm and composed when they interact with their loved one.

4 SIMPLE WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR MENTAL IMMUNITY

1. Maintain a healthy physical diet: Certain foods, alcohol, and drugs all have an impact on mood and cognition. Recognize which foods bring on guilt, anger, frustration, or self-hate. Eat the foods that increase positive emotions and increase your energy. We make poorer decisions when fatigued.

2. Maintain a healthy mental diet: What you put in your mind, impacts you. Media, movies, music, books, gossip, etc, all can impact your mental state and rob you of your peace. Engage in conversations of hope rather than despair. Consume ideas that enhance your mood and limit those that upset you.

3. Engage in behaviors and habits that support optimal mental health: Optimize sleep patterns, exercise, and hobbies that you are passionate about.

"Action, is the antidote to despair."-Joan Baez

4. Spend time with people that love you and validate your worth: Avoid or limit contact with people that rob you of your identity or deplete your energy.

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NOTES ON ANXIETY AND OCD

Your Mind Needs to be Cared For

Biology impacts psychology. Our brain is equipped for survival, constantly looking for potential danger and threats. Smarter individuals see more “threats” because they are capable of recognizing more opportunities and possibilities. 

When we fail to eat regularly our minds become agitated and often times this can impact our hormones and sleep patterns because the mind’s “threat-detection device” goes on high alert. 

Although it may seem incredibly simple, many individuals experiencing various forms of anxiety and OCD symptoms are also experiencing co-occurring physiological issues including thyroid conditions, malnutrition, infections, etc. It is important to regularly speak with your physician to rule out biological issues impacting mental health. 

Ensure that the individual experiencing these concerns is eating at regular intervals and sleeping regularly. If this individual is able, schedule the times at which these important behaviors occur. The more the mind is cared for, the less agitated it becomes, and this decreases the intensity of symptoms in many individuals. 

Give Your Mind Direction

It is important to recognize that anxiety and OCD symptoms reflect a person with incredible intelligence. It is as if your mind is a Ferrari, but without a road on which to travel, it will create havoc.

Provide your mind with structure; daily written routine or events will keep the mind engaged and away from overthinking. When the mind is forced to make a decision, the mind can become agitated and may experience one of three things:

Flight, Fight, or Freeze 

In the case of some individuals, they adapt their need for control by performing a compulsive behavior or ritual in attempts to relax their mind and initiate participation. However, these experiences are incredibly painful for many individuals due to the judgment which perpetuates the behaviors. 

When we provide a structure or outline for the day, this reduces agitation and tension in the mind because the individual “knows what to expect.” When we can control this automatic experience in the mind there are less obsessive or compulsive behaviors and thoughts. The goal becomes to slow the mind down by giving it more opportunities to participate in the moment, and think less. 

Thinking produces more judgment.

Judgement creates more tension, fuels obsession, and drives compulsion.

Prescribing the Symptom

For the individual experiencing OCD symptoms including obsessive worry or a compulsive habit (i.e. hand washing, worry/question/validation cycles) it is often times helpful to schedule this behavior as well. This reduces the urge and provides relaxation as the individual knows when this behavior is to be performed. 

For example, parents schedule their daughter’s “worry time” for 8:30pm before bed (this is agreed upon with parents and child)

When performing the behavior on purpose, the relationship to the behavior is changed and judgment is decreased, making the experience more manageable and more easily manipulated. This can be of great use with psychotherapy and allow for greater work on the cognitive processes that can produce these symptoms.

Handling Fire: OCD and Anxiety and the Family

Sometimes it is helpful to see individuals who are experiencing significant OCD and obsessive worry as a raging forest fire. It becomes important to avoid providing them with more fuel by asking questions about the compulsive thoughts, overtly judging or criticizing them, or engaging in arguments attempting to convince them of their apparently irrational thoughts. 

This can be really difficult and thoughts can mutate when we engage them. Remember that we always want to model the behavior that we want the other person to adapt

Be calm, do not add your own judgement to the equation. Remember that judgement enhances compulsions and obsessions.

If you are the family of the afflicted individual, recognize that when they ask you questions regarding irrational or obsessive thoughts, they are not asking you questions, they are asking to borrow your ego, and get a reality check. Their questions assist them in building the cognitive framework to fight off and recognize irrational thoughts that disturb them. 

If you do speak, use inclusive language to keep the individual’s mind relaxed. This means allowing for the individual to experience what they are presently experiencing, and connecting it with the desired reality we want. 

For instance: (parent speaking to child) “Johnny, you can feel really worried about these things, and you can also feel relaxed and discover ways to forget about this stuff.”

Inclusive language replaces “But” with “And” to connect ideas together and allow for paradoxical experiences.  

WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

Recovery from anxiety and OCD is possible because no problem is happening twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That means that there are days and times when symptoms aren’t happening, or the problems are less intense.

Your job is to start paying attention to those times when things are at their best. As we gain awareness of the behaviors, thoughts, and experiences that invite us into the best version of ourselves, we create our own program of healing. 

I encourage you to start paying attention to what is working in your life, or the life of the individual dealing with these difficulties. Remember that whatever you focus on gets bigger. As we slowly draw our focus away from our troubles and weaknesses, and place our attention on the good and functioning parts of our lives, those areas begin to grow again, and we can start leaving Worryland behind.