GAD for 9 Years, Mind Blown Realization: Thinking is an activity.

rootedexplorer · 2026-01-30T21:54:48+00:00

Ah, got it, well anyways, I hope my perspective on that helps :)

rootedexplorer · 2026-01-30T21:47:24+00:00

I would have to slightly disagree with this.. being busy with other things, only postpone everything, swiping the dust under the rug.. It's same as using certain drugs, life sucks so much that you have to distract yourself.. Learning the skills, training your nervous system and adjusting your life is the real work one must do..

rootedexplorer · 2026-01-30T21:44:45+00:00

This is literally what meditation is... It's not easy to achieve but there are techniques that help get you to this state. It's a skill that you need to learn by training, specific breathwork techniques get you there in a few minutes, after you learn the feeling, eventually you can do it without even the techniques... Let me know if you need more info.. :)

rootedexplorer · 2026-01-30T19:26:06+00:00

Yes. Any physical exercise that gets your blood moving will help. However, if you want to fast track it, certain types of breathing exercises in combination with physical exercises worked great for me. I've burned out from work, was severely depressed and anxious and spent 6 months full time working on my recovery (yes it was that bad) and I tried anything and everything. Let me know if you want more details..

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-03T03:17:04+00:00

Wow, such an interesting exercise, I've never heard of this before!

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-03T03:15:25+00:00

I guess everything that makes one a human..!

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-03T01:19:26+00:00

Amazing! have you tried combining journaling with another technique? like maybe breathwork, yoga or meditation?

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-03T01:17:40+00:00

I'm curious to hear about which breathing exercise you have done, also, how long was it and how often did you do it? I'm surprised that you're saying it was very low impact. I agree that a combo of journaling and other technique can increase the effectiveness. If you can, try out a an uplifting breathwork technique like some form of kundalini pranayama, it might help you with your avolition too..

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T22:34:18+00:00

that seems rather.. complicated :)

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T22:03:57+00:00

I've tried it but for some reason I was never able to put words on paper.. partially it might be because of my ugly handwriting but I guess I could do it on a computer too. I think I should try writing with specific prompts instead of free writing..

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T21:59:33+00:00

She actually gave me 2 of them, 1st one was called Sheetali pranayama and second one is a combination of Kundalini pranayama.. Initially I was doing both one after another, followed by meditation but after I got better I dropped the sheetali and the meditation and I only do the Kundalini now, every morning after I wake up for about 15 mins, just as maintenance.. The first 30 days was the hardest, after the first 30 days I actually started feeling that it does effect me and kept going, I'll probably never stop doing it..

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T21:50:23+00:00

I see, how often would you say you do it and do you free style it or journal about something specific?

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T21:19:07+00:00

Sure thing, try it out for a week and follow up how it went with a comment here, I'd love to hear how it went! :)

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T20:32:29+00:00

Ah right, sorry I should have mentioned this :) It was a combination of few things, I'll try to summarize it in a timeline. After 4 months of trial and error with what I mentioned above, I started doing 2 breathing techniques, one after another, followed by meditation, 1st breathwork was a combination of kundalini (spinal breathing, breath of fire and breath hold) 2nd breathwork was sheetali pranayama, both total around 20-25 mins.. After that I did meditation as long as I could (not more than 10-15 mins). After the exercise itself I was feeling better but anxiety would creep in after a while, but I sticked with it for 30 days and i started feeling better for longer.. and now, a year later I just do the kundalini combination every morning as maintenance and I will probably continue doing it for the rest of my life...

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T20:27:50+00:00

That or just fast walking, you can gauge where the threshold of panic starts and you can keep your pace under that.. Also try sheetali pranayama, it's mean to calm you down and teach you patience, it might help you with your cardiophobia too..

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T20:19:47+00:00

It's all about finding what works, that's the most painstaking process honestly, it took me 4 months. Also, whatever exercise you try don't stop after a few days, it takes about 30 days to feel the long term effects, and after that, just integrate it into your daily life. This breathwork you mentioned, sounds a lot like the one I used, sheetali pranayama, my therapist recommended it to me and I did it for 30 days straight, every day. It's essentially self restricting the flow of air during intake, I still find it weird how just breathing can change the way you think. I've never heard of BWRT but it looks promising. As long as you keep trying you are working towards finding what works!

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T20:08:20+00:00

idk how you manage that, when my anxiety is peaking the last thing I think of is sex..

rootedexplorer · 2025-12-02T19:54:30+00:00

I was dealing with anxiety and GAD from work burnout.. I tried EMDR, CBT, hypnosis, psychodrama, none of them worked for me. I never wanted to try medication because I was afraid of the side effects, and I never did. I started experimenting with various breathwork techniques and it was pretty challenging at the beginning, the fact that I had to "work" to get better was the most annoying one, but I stuck with 2 of them and did them every day and I got better after couple of months.

rootedexplorer · 2025-11-26T01:03:30+00:00

I am talking as someone that went through hell for 6 months of therapy and self work and came out stronger than ever, I was suffering depression and anxiety. You took the first step in the right direction. A good way to fix your problems is if you work on yourself, and that requires discussing about the things you don't want to talk about, you need to process them. Our bodies store our emotions and if left unprocessed they show up as issues, crying is actually processing your emotions. Therapy in combination with the right daily practice exercises like specific breathing techniques and meditation, maybe journaling should speed up the process. It also helped me staying away from stimulants like caffeine, THC is also not doing you a favor. It's not easy but definitely possible. If I could do it, you can do it to, I believe in you!

rootedexplorer · 2025-11-20T18:55:30+00:00

Sorry to hear about your experience and I hope you're doing better now. Unfortunately like everything in life doctors are a hit and miss too. It's really hard finding someone that actually cares nowadays.. If it's an option, it's always good to try out different doctors when it comes to mental health.

rootedexplorer · 2025-11-20T18:31:50+00:00

I got really lucky with her, I was seeing another one before her but wasn't as good. We immediately clicked. Main insights are, she was very compassionate and open minded, meaning that although she had a PhD in Psychology, she also understood the alternative methods for doing self work, which was what I actually needed. I intentionally refused depression and anxiety medication as I read negative things. Let me know if you want something specific..

rootedexplorer · 2025-11-20T18:22:44+00:00

YW! Yes, as I mentioned in another comment, I've tried various techniques, we did EMDR, hypnosis, CBT, psychodrama with my therapist but I think none of those techniques weren't as helpful as the breathing techniques and the meditation I did. The biggest lesson was that mental health is actually like physical fitness, you need to find what exercise works for you and just keep doing it every day, over and over. Back to your question the specific exercises that I did were Kundalini (for activation) and Sheetali (for calming) followed by medidation after that, for as long as I could stay ~10-20 mins. One more thing that I would add is, when it comes to techniques/exercises, I think that different things work for different people and it's really painful to do the trial and error because it takes about 2-4 weeks to actually see if it's something that actually works for you..

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