The way of the world - anxiety

[Sam123]

So it's fairly obvious that our lifestyle's can affect our health. Stress, Drinking, Drugs, Diet, lack of exercise ect.

I don't think we are meant to live the way we live today - life is too fast paced - full of demands. There is a lot of negativity from childhood. If you are surrounded by bad energy, whether seeing it or hearing it, then it's bound to leave a mark.

The news, i do not watch the news or read any papers. I try to keep my mind clear from negative thoughts which media love to feed us. I've always felt affected by the world and the way it is, maybe it depends on the person, but i have an overwhelming need to help people. I dislike injustice and things that seem to have little or no affect on others have a lasting affect on me. Even since being a child i remember wondering why people would do the things they do, my cat was killed by a group of lads when i was about 8 - i was traumatized and couldn't understand why anyone would do this.

I suppose i spend a lot of time wishing that the world would be a better place, than humans would not cause fear in others, kill animals for fun making them extinct, pollute the planet and kill each other. I know, i sound morbid and there is a lot of good in the world, i've seen it. However what i'm saying is i feel if the world were different, if we lived a slower paced life, where love and kindness were more important than greed and power, then anxiety problems wouldn't exist.

There's so much that contributes to it, most of which we're unaware of, but it's easy to see that some people find it a lot harder living in this world than others do.
I see the beauty in everything and i've been happy even through my hardest times because i am grateful for life and the one's i love, but even with my ability to see the good i struggle with the bad.

Anybody else think about these things? Or is this just too deep :lac::blush:

[Sunflower2]

I hate reading the news, it's like the media is trying to see how distressed they can make everyone. Do you find that you feel more relaxed after a holiday because you are out of your normal routine, away from the news and stress of every day life?

You could give me 10 good stories and 1 bad, and I'd still focus on the bad. I think it's a survival instinct to stay alert to threats. Except when you have an anxiety disorder every single thing is a threat!

Have you heard of mindfulness? From your post I could see you might get a lot out of it, as its really noticing and appreciating what you have in the here and now. You get so wrapped up in life, the past and future worries that you don't really realise the only thing that matters is this moment. Now I'm the deep one!

[Sam123]

Hi Kimberley2

Yes most definitely i find that to be the case. Upon return of my holiday after a day or two back to 'reality' i felt the stresses of everything starting to creep in.

I feel i am like a sponge and soak up peoples negative energy, i've made a lot of positive changes recently and although i have a great urge to help people, i have decided to step back from a lot of people/situations as regardless of my efforts people need to want to help themselves and that's something i can't do.

By withdrawing from certain things, even conversations that have a negative tone i find that i am much better now that i am not willing to let other people have an affect on me. My anxiety sure increases around certain people and places.

Yes only recently though from Terry's Mindfulness post, i think it's brilliant although i've not give it much time as of late to be honest i've been fairly pre occupied, i get caught up in other mundane stuff which doesn't help me at all. It's something i definitely want to do among-st other things.


You get so wrapped up in life, the past and future worries that you don't really realise the only thing that matters is this moment.

Very true :emot-worship:

[Sunflower2]

I'm the same, if someone I care about is upset, I tend to feel upset also.

Mindfulness doesn't have to be the traditional meditation where you sit for 10-15 minutes, you can incorporate into your day to day as well. Like simple things such as having a shower, brushing your teeth or eating, just noticing all the different sensations and senses. Or even driving, noticing how you're actually driving automatically, how you know what to do, or something similar. Just noticing little things and it really helps to ground and reset your mind if it feels scattered!

Although like you I tend to forget when I'm so busy with balancing life and anxiety!

[Sam123]

Yes even when they are probably over it i'm still here worrying about people :doh:

That sounds interesting, i think i will definitely benefit, sometimes i just need to de clutter my mind through out the day as it gets easily consumed.

Thanks for your replies!

[Carnation]

I totally feel the same way as you Sam.

I struggle with the way the world has become. The greed, the fighting, the bad and nasty people. I said earlier in another post that I have always wanted to put the world to rights.
I asked my Mum a while back whether she thought it was easier in today's worlds compared to the 50's, 60's or 70's.
And she said it was definitely harder now. Even with the poverty of those eras, it was a better place. People were more friendlier and you could do more socially. Everyone made an effort.
Now, we have so many gadgets and drive miles and miles to work and back, grabbing food as we go. We have bosses breathing down our necks with targets, meetings and yet another new idea.
And the woman is expected to still run the home and family and have that career.

Sorry, I will have to stop, I am going on and on rambling, but you know what I mean.

On the other hand, I am learning to appreciate the good things in Life that I had stopped noticing, but have taken time to enjoy since having my breakdown.
Sometime the simple things in Life are the best ones. :)

[Davit]

Ah, I live on permanent holiday, But I worked for it. Some of it contract, six or seven days a week.

Carnation, one of those things I appreciate is a good women, enough to cook clean and bake at least my share and still drive the tractor and garden. I can cook too, Not as good as Aline, but she was French so I made her traditional french bread. I'm a better baker. I made her wine of her choice too even though I preferred mine so had to make both. I grew her the herbs she wanted. But alas this is not Quebec and has few lakes. And my french is not good. I make french bread once in a while to remember. Every evening meal was candles and wine with it. She planted one of the flower beds with perennials, I work hard to keep it alive and clean. I hope she has mountains in Quebec, she loved these.

---------- Post added at 21:46 ---------- Previous post was at 21:38 ----------

Sam

I haven't had a TV in close to thirty years and don't have a radio either, I never watch news on the computer. And if the conversation gets negative, or bashes minorities or different people I change it or leave. I don't read hate mail people send me. And I definitely don't answer it or chain letters. Netflix is full of violent movies. I don't watch them. And they say nature is cruel. At least it gives you some pleasure in the process.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I would welcome a slow paced life. I've always been in the rat race and here is where I ended up. Status chasing, money chasing, "one upmanship", etc. Its all BS.

Living off my own land or running my own specialised small business would be for me. Not commerical farming though or working all the hours in a papershop or similiar!

The news is naturally the way it is. Build up an inner shield to it and let it skim off you. There is always something bad happening to someone somewhere but there is always more good things happening. There must be because we hear a lot about the bad but everyday people are doing good things for each other that remain unreported or because they are just naturally between couples or families.

[Rennie1989]

I only focus on the news if something important to me has happened, like the attacks in Tunisia, otherwise I read the headlines.

I have thought whether we are worse off today than before, but every part of history has it's good and bad times. History before the 1900's was horrendous for medicine compared to what we have today and we have technology to make our lives easier but then we are constantly working, and the fact that my husband and I have to work full time even if we want children.

[Davit]

I like the computer, but could live without it. I don't like cities so don't live there. My food is about the same as it would have been at the turn of the century. I need the conveniences but don't often like the price I pay for them. If I was not crippled I would be living a lot more primitive, and a lot more peaceful I think. Certainly less noise. My first fridge nearly drove me nuts, I was not used to the noise. My dad supported us alone and for a time my mother lived in another house, had her own car and a maid. Married women didn't work, He left us 75000.00 when he died.
Rennie you better put money away because there might not be pensions. Here now old age pension starts at 75. I got in under the wire and will get mine at 65. I have no mortgages because I got scared 25 years ago and made sure of that.
If I was healthy I would take the past again. I think today we are trapped in a world of our own making, top heavy with feeders that don't do anything for their money but take yours.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yep, I studied history a long long time ago and you wouldn't really want to go back to then...unless you were priveleged. But there are lessons to be learnt in certain elements of how they lived e.g. we've gone to pre-processed foods and now back to organic, Mindfulness in certain cultures, home brewing of probiotics in certain cultures, etc. Although forget paleo diets, they don't even match to what science has found was being eaten back then! :doh:

[dally]

Hi
I think there always was horrible atrocities and natural disasters happening all over the world, but we were cocooned from the knowledge until the internet brought it literly to our hand, as it was actually happening.
But we still have q choice, not to read or watch. Just switch off.

50 years ago people were dying from simple infections\diseases, medications and science have leaped ahead and people are now living longer and in better health.

I think my childhood was a much slower and simpler time. I think young children\teenagers live such fast paced lives. P lain wholesome diet is replaced with a very vqried and culturql cuisine. Learning is no longer from blackboard and books, but from classrooms of computers. Travel is quicker and easier.
I am old enough to remember, our first TV (black and white).. Then colour. Then video machine!!
Twin tub w ashing machine, then automatic! Our first house telephone, then mobiles.

[Davit]

On a nice day like today anxiety has no place.http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=2420&d=1435774890

[dally]

Here nice cartoon David!
One happy beaver?

[mezzaninedoor]

I think life is almost too immediate, everything is available on demand. However it also means that you can extrapolate disaster from the falling of dominoes in your own life.

I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self not to collect so much stuff. Not expensive stuff but lots of books, comics, boardgames etc, to be more selective perhaps.

I find myself anxious at choice, anxious at news, anxious at guilt as my life should be easier than others yet I find myself stricken with anxiety and depression in spite of my western privilege at now I find myself confused and unable to make sense of stuff that all seemed so much simpler when i was a teenager.

We'll all be different i'm sure but I find myself unable to cope but also unable to work out how to get to a place where I can cope with the anxieties

[Lencoboy]

I know this is an oldish thread from the mid 2010s but still remains as relevant some 7 years later, if not more so in some respects.

I definitely do agree that the media, which used to be far more primitive in its capabilities and outreach (especially before the 90s), seems to rule our lives a bit too much nowadays, and that we seem to be powerless to stop certain irrational elements permeating our society (e.g, those who regularly spread disinformation/fake news with relative impunity).

I honestly can't ever imagine any absolutely perfect trouble-free time to be alive throughout history, but the other day I was listening to a bootleg recording of a live concert of one of my favourite bands that my dad took me to in December 1985 (at the age of 8 1/2) at Birmingham Odeon (still back when it was primarily a live music venue) that had been recorded by a punter in the audience on a portable Walkman-type cassette recorder. I was immediately transported back to what seemed like a far simpler, more carefree time, where I was generally unaware of or at least oblivious to many of the horrible things happening in the world at that time, even closer to home.

Now of course, whenever we switch on the news we're repeatedly being reminded multiple times a day of the COL crisis, certain events in far-away countries that many of which probably still wouldn't even have registered in our news headlines pre-21st Century, and being conditioned into hypervigilance and having our wits about us constantly in case, say, we end up catching things like Covid or end up getting caught up in other untoward incidents (e.g, terrorist attacks, riots, robberies, personal attacks by strangers, etc), even though the actual risks of encountering many of those things mentioned in the brackets are probably no greater now than when I attended that live show with my dad in late 85, plus of course there were a lot of people facing severe financial hardships back then too, let alone today.

I think it's often more a case of our perceptions of things being much worse than the true reality, though of course there will always be many variables involved.

[NoraB]

I honestly can't ever imagine any absolutely perfect trouble-free time to be alive throughout history, but the other day I was listening to a bootleg recording of a live concert of one of my favourite bands that my dad took me to in December 1985 (at the age of 8 1/2) at Birmingham Odeon (still back when it was primarily a live music venue) that had been recorded by a punter in the audience on a portable Walkman-type cassette recorder. I was immediately transported back to what seemed like a far simpler, more carefree time, where I was generally unaware of or at least oblivious to many of the horrible things happening in the world at that time, even closer to home.

Who was the band?

[Lencoboy]

Who was the band?

Magnum.

A cult Midlands-based rock act who only had a brief brush with mainstream chart success between then and the very early 90s.

They had released their signature album, titled 'On A Storyteller's Night' earlier that year (1985), and their earlier albums in particular had a bit of a Queen-like influence.