this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2026
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Mental Health
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Depending on your situation what I'm about to tell you might not work, but it worked for me.
If you spend a lot of time in your thoughts thinking about the future in bas or catastrophic (involuntarily for the most part), this tip helped me a lot. It use the analogy of the cinema. When you are watching a movie at the cinema you can be fully immersed in the stories and the emotions of the characters. But, if there is people chatting, eating popcorn, or if you focus on the real actor name, the real place this is filmed, a continuity error (channel your inner annoying Cinema Sins), etc. you are no more "in" the movie. The projection and scenario you making when imagining the future in a bad way, are well, you imagination. You are in a way the projector and the spectator in this imaginary cinema. You can make the scenario worse of you want or better. Try it with what's on you mind right now and causing anxiety. You are in control of this mental projector, it's not premonition (even if it feel like it). And like a cinema, you can nitpick at the artifice of these vision and escape the emotional rollercoaster they can bring. You are not in this imaginary future right now. You are right now and the rest is fabrication of your own mind. I don't know if it will help you like it did me, but it helped me detect that I was in my mental cinema and stop the projector. It's not fail proof, but it help get some respite.
Grounding exercises, anything that promote attention is good. The classics are breathing exercises, body scan and 54321. But overall any meditation is good as meditation is an exercise about focusing you attention on some physical sensation of you body. As long as attention is activated (and it is hard and require training and regularity to get good at) your default mode network is not. And the default mode network is where, among many other things of course, your prediction about the future happen.
Good sleep hygiene helps a lot. Regular exercise help a lot. Meeting people in real life can help (but social anxiety can be a hard step to take sometimes).
If things are really too hard, and they absolutely can be unfortunately, you can always seek a professional and get drugs like alprazolam. They can be a game changer but you have to be careful about them.
If a doctor is out of reach because you live in a country like the USA, but I would be very careful about this, one magic mushrooms session kills anxiety for months. Can also trigger schizophrenia if you are at risk (check you family history but they will always be a risk). Risk/rewards, inform yourself before any drugs.
Good luck, be nice to yourself and have a nice day ๐