Stress insidiously affects you, your spouse and your children. You or a family member may be suffering from stress or anxiety and not know it. There are three obsessive behaviors that you are likely to be engaging in that impede your healing process and stop you from enjoying a stress-free life. Recognizing these barriers can be an excellent step towards getting rid of the problems associated with being over-stressed. If you have hobbies already, such as writing for fun these might have staved off your anxiety in the past, but might not be effective now because of the blocking behaviours.
The first is obsessive negativity. Obsessive negativity means that you have a tendency toward being "negative" about places, people and situations in your life. Teenagers can be susceptible to this behaviour.
If you find yourself saying things like Everything always goes wrong or I never do anything right you might be suffering from obsessed negativity. This might be unconscious, but you may be able to trace its roots back to one or more events in your life. This attitude will hold you back and can lead to a spiraling down of your personality as you will see less and less the positive things around you. For your children, this kind of negativity can lead to depression, which can also lead to self-harm and suicide, so it pays to be vigilant.
Obsessive perfectionism sets people up against impossibly high standards, either your own, or some external pressure such as what you think your friends will think, or your boss. Many parents force high standards on their teenagers, but don't back it up with praise and encouragement. If it's your own standards, you may consider yourself a failure if you don't achieve them; if they're your perceived standards from other people then you may think that you'll make them mad by falling short. This type of behaviour is sometimes difficult to identify as we all tend to want to do a good job. It's recognizing whether holding yourself to the standards is causing you stress if you don't meet up to them.
Obsessive analysis is the third. You might be obsessed about minute details of processes and procedures, going over them again and again until you are sure you understand it in miniscule detail - often far more than is required. You can't relax if things go wrong, so you obsess over the processes and procedures.
Obsessive analysis goes beyond analytical thinking into an unhealthy thought pattern. The thoughts about the process block thoughts in other areas of your life, and prevent you from unwinding. Recognising this is sometimes challenging as there is the tendency to believe that you are just analysing a process, as opposed to obsessing over it.
If you recognize any of these blocking behaviours in yourself or your kids, there are tactics you can use to address them and help free yourself or your children of them without having to resort to a medical consultant. First, ask a few trusted friends or relatives whether they think you or your children are negative in general, or if they think you are difficult to be around.
You will need to approach this with an open mind because the truth can hurt, but this is the quickest way of finding out whether others see you differently to how you expect them to see you. The insights you gain can be used to actively change how you deal with life.
Secondly, keep a diary to write down and establish patterns of when blocking behaviors are used. Even if you are not thrilled with the idea of writing, you can make little entries into a note book or journal each day. The great part is that you'll begin to see patterns in behavior that reveal exactly what is happening to foster anxiety.
The first is obsessive negativity. Obsessive negativity means that you have a tendency toward being "negative" about places, people and situations in your life. Teenagers can be susceptible to this behaviour.
If you find yourself saying things like Everything always goes wrong or I never do anything right you might be suffering from obsessed negativity. This might be unconscious, but you may be able to trace its roots back to one or more events in your life. This attitude will hold you back and can lead to a spiraling down of your personality as you will see less and less the positive things around you. For your children, this kind of negativity can lead to depression, which can also lead to self-harm and suicide, so it pays to be vigilant.
Obsessive perfectionism sets people up against impossibly high standards, either your own, or some external pressure such as what you think your friends will think, or your boss. Many parents force high standards on their teenagers, but don't back it up with praise and encouragement. If it's your own standards, you may consider yourself a failure if you don't achieve them; if they're your perceived standards from other people then you may think that you'll make them mad by falling short. This type of behaviour is sometimes difficult to identify as we all tend to want to do a good job. It's recognizing whether holding yourself to the standards is causing you stress if you don't meet up to them.
Obsessive analysis is the third. You might be obsessed about minute details of processes and procedures, going over them again and again until you are sure you understand it in miniscule detail - often far more than is required. You can't relax if things go wrong, so you obsess over the processes and procedures.
Obsessive analysis goes beyond analytical thinking into an unhealthy thought pattern. The thoughts about the process block thoughts in other areas of your life, and prevent you from unwinding. Recognising this is sometimes challenging as there is the tendency to believe that you are just analysing a process, as opposed to obsessing over it.
If you recognize any of these blocking behaviours in yourself or your kids, there are tactics you can use to address them and help free yourself or your children of them without having to resort to a medical consultant. First, ask a few trusted friends or relatives whether they think you or your children are negative in general, or if they think you are difficult to be around.
You will need to approach this with an open mind because the truth can hurt, but this is the quickest way of finding out whether others see you differently to how you expect them to see you. The insights you gain can be used to actively change how you deal with life.
Secondly, keep a diary to write down and establish patterns of when blocking behaviors are used. Even if you are not thrilled with the idea of writing, you can make little entries into a note book or journal each day. The great part is that you'll begin to see patterns in behavior that reveal exactly what is happening to foster anxiety.
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Other relaxing pastimes you could take up to take your mind off anxiety and involve your family include reading a good magazine. Your children would appreciate watching great movies.
