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Whether it's you or your children that are stressed, it puts pressure on your family life. Do you suspect that you or a family member is suffering from anxiety? There are three obsessive behaviors that you are likely to be engaging in that reduce your ability to recover from anxious moments and stop you from enjoying a stress-free life. Being able to recognize can be a great first step towards ridding yourself of the problems associated with being over-stressed. If you have hobbies already, such as writing these might have staved off your anxiety in the past, but might not be working now because of the blocking behaviours.
Obsessive negativity is the first. When you are obsessively negative you can be down on almost everything in your everyday life - situations, places, people and things - and it becomes a habit. You might be saying "Well, isn't that every teenager?" Teenagers can be negative, but generally not about absolutely everything.
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 teens, 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 anxiety if you don't meet up to them.
The third is obsessive analysis - being overly obsessed with minute details and being afraid that if you don't understand the process that things won't go right. You might look over a procedure over and over again, rehashing it in your brain, becoming anxious that you don't have full control if you don't have full knowledge.
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.
Don't go rushing off to find a psychologist for you or your kids. If you have already identified blocking behaviours, the first step is to consult your friends and family to get any feedback from them. It will help them if you explain what the blocking behaviour types are so that they can give you a critique based specifically on those things as opposed to trivialities such as your dress sense or whether you can sing! Incidentally, singing lyrics to songs you like can be a great stress reliever.
Explain the three blocking behaviours and ask them to specifically address those as opposed to things that might not be relevant. The insight you will get from others' assessment of you is invaluable and you'll know precisely how others see you.
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.
Obsessive negativity is the first. When you are obsessively negative you can be down on almost everything in your everyday life - situations, places, people and things - and it becomes a habit. You might be saying "Well, isn't that every teenager?" Teenagers can be negative, but generally not about absolutely everything.
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 teens, 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 anxiety if you don't meet up to them.
The third is obsessive analysis - being overly obsessed with minute details and being afraid that if you don't understand the process that things won't go right. You might look over a procedure over and over again, rehashing it in your brain, becoming anxious that you don't have full control if you don't have full knowledge.
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.
Don't go rushing off to find a psychologist for you or your kids. If you have already identified blocking behaviours, the first step is to consult your friends and family to get any feedback from them. It will help them if you explain what the blocking behaviour types are so that they can give you a critique based specifically on those things as opposed to trivialities such as your dress sense or whether you can sing! Incidentally, singing lyrics to songs you like can be a great stress reliever.
Explain the three blocking behaviours and ask them to specifically address those as opposed to things that might not be relevant. The insight you will get from others' assessment of you is invaluable and you'll know precisely how others see you.
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 hobbies that can reduce stress for your children includes playing online racing games and watching motor sport - whatever distracts them from your current pressures is good.
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