Health / Wellness

How To Work With The Anxious Brain

Anxiety is one of the more treatable mental health issues but sadly, most people wait five or more years to seek help.

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Ed. note: This post is by Jeena Cho, a Legal Mindfulness Strategist. She is the co-author of The Anxious Lawyer (affiliate link), a book written by lawyers for lawyers that makes mindfulness and meditation accessible and approachable. She is the creator of Mindful Pause, a self-paced online program for creating a more sustainable, peaceful, and productive law practice in just six minutes a day. Jeena offers actionable change strategies for reducing stress and anxiety while increasing productivity, joy, and satisfaction through mindfulness.

I’ve always been an anxious person. Constantly worrying about what’s lurking in hiding a few steps ahead, never being able to enjoy the moment. Even when I achieved success, I was filled with anxiety.

It wasn’t until I was regularly having anxiety attacks until it became debilitating that I finally decided to do something about it. What I found to be surprising was that anxiety is one of the more treatable mental health issues but sadly, most people wait five or more years to seek help. (I probably waited close to 10 years).

Anxiety is painful to live with. It’s the constant fortune-telling, trying to foresee all the things that can go wrong in every situation. It’s the fear of screwing up. Trying to predict the future. It’s the feeling of never being at ease because your mind is constantly on high alert.

When I started Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), I was searching for a cure for the unbearable pain I was living with. Just like taking an Advil for a headache, I expected the symptom to disappear. After all, practicing sitting in silence everyday — there has to be some compelling reason for putting yourself through that.

After many years of practice, here is what I’ve learned about anxiety.

Read the rest of the post over at Jeena’s website…

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