Recognize that anxiety, particularly worry thinking, often functions as a habit loop, serving as a distraction or an attempt to gain control. Understanding this is the crucial first step to breaking the cycle and seeing its true, unhelpful nature.
To break anxiety habits, follow a three-step process: First, recognize the specific triggers and worry thinking of your anxiety loop. Second, clearly observe what you are actually gaining from the anxiety (often suffering). Third, replace the anxiety with more rewarding behaviors like kindness, curiosity, or being present in the moment.
When you catch yourself in habitual worry, consciously replace that behavior with awareness, especially an attitudinal quality of curiosity. This steps out of the worry cycle, reveals the pain of worry, and taps into the inherent reward of curious awareness, which feels better than anxiety.
Utilize the brain’s natural tendency to seek pleasant experiences by focusing on the inherent rewards of beneficial behaviors like joy, kindness, curiosity, or awareness. This ‘bigger, better offer’ approach helps to naturally shift habits away from those causing suffering, rather than relying on willpower.
Resist the mind’s tendency (prapancha) to project present anxiety into a future filled with suffering. Instead, investigate the present experience of anxiety with curiosity and friendliness to see it as a constantly changing flux of sensations and thoughts, rather than an overwhelming, stable force.
Practice observing your thoughts, including anxious ones, as mere mental phenomena rather than absolute truths or commands. This detachment allows you to ‘zoom back the camera’ and reduces the power of thoughts to control your emotional state and behavior.
When experiencing anxiety, focus on the physical sensation in your body. On your next in-breath, breathe into that feeling with kind, curious awareness, holding it briefly, and then release with the out-breath, as bringing awareness to tightness can help it loosen.
Use noting practice to observe the specific physical sensations (e.g., tightness, gurgling, throbbing) and mental phenomena (e.g., worry) that constitute anxiety. This helps deconstruct anxiety, making it appear less monolithic and more manageable by revealing its constantly changing nature.
When meditating and thoughts like to-do lists arise, do not fight or try to stop them. Instead, welcome them in, perhaps by giving them a name, and then gently return your focus to the breath, as fighting is a losing battle and welcoming can diminish their power over time.
For habits causing suffering (e.g., excessive drinking, sugar), reframe ‘renunciation’ as ’non-addiction.’ Experiment with giving up substances or behaviors that cause more trouble than they’re worth to improve well-being and meditation practice.
Apply mindfulness principles to manage technology and social media use: observe how your mind gets drawn in, and clearly see what you truly gain from excessive use. This process of ‘disenchantment’ helps you gain control and use technology responsibly.
When you notice yourself engaging in self-criticism or self-flagellation after a mistake, bring awareness to that self-criticism itself. Observe it with a sense of humor or detachment to ‘pop the bubble’ of self-judgment and foster a more compassionate response.