Severe anxiety and obsessive thoughts: psychologists recommend the Safe technique to calm them down

Probably everyone is familiar with the state when obsessive thoughts do not allow you to sleep or even live, and anxiety fills every minute of your life. SSPDaily tells about it.

Psychologists suggest that in such cases, you should use special techniques to help you cope with such situations, and you can do it on your own, without the help of specialists.

One of these techniques is the "Safe" method, which is recommended

Sometimes people can experience obsessive thoughts and anxiety. And they bring a lot of problems and unpleasant emotions. However, it is quite possible to cope with anxiety and panic. Therefore, the first stage of work in this case may be emotional stabilization. The Ministry of Health suggests trying the effective Safe technique.

According to experts, the Safe method is one of the best relaxation and emotional stabilization techniques. As with most similar techniques, it can have some variations.

It is believed that this technique is effective, especially at the first stage of work with psychological trauma, it is designed primarily to stabilize the emotional state of a person. However, stabilization is important not only when dealing with trauma, but it can and should be used when there is no more strength to cope with problems, when the psyche and its resources are pushed to the limit, and emotions are overwhelmed.

How to deal with intrusive thoughts and severe anxiety

• Before you start, you need to be in a more or less relaxed state, and if it helps, sit or lie down comfortably. If you use the technique during emotional instability, the effectiveness of the Safe will be close to zero.

• Imagine a safe. It has to be very reliable, strong, and roomy enough. Think about what it could be made of, and what color it is. Try to touch it - whether it is hard or soft, warm or cold. Think of a way to open and close it. Remember that only you know how it closes, only you have the key and no one else can open it.

• When you have imagined a strong, reliable and spacious safe, think of everything that makes you unhappy at this time in your life. Everything that prevents you from living a full life and feeling happy. It can be things, people, your feelings. It can be a lot of things. Try to remember everything, try not to forget what prevents you from enjoying life now.
• Now everything that you have remembered needs to be put into this safe, absolutely everything. The safe is roomy enough to fit everything in. Close the safe door tightly and lock it with the key.

• When everything that made you unhappy is firmly locked in the safe, think about where you would like to put it. It can be somewhere far, far away, or close to you, it doesn't matter - even in your room. You should keep the key. It is important to keep the key.
• Remember that a safe reliably stores what is in it, but it cannot be destroyed, because then everything that is in it will return. And while everything negative and bad is stored in the safe, we can take a break, recuperate, take care of ourselves, and then what is hidden in the safe will no longer be so scary and harmful.

Of course, the specifics of this technique may vary depending on the specific problem, and there may be some deviations and variations in its implementation, but in general, regular implementation of this technique every day, in particularly severe cases - twice a day in combination with relaxation techniques shows the high effectiveness of this technique in achieving emotional stabilization in crisis situations.

If you can't cope with negative states on your own, the Ministry of Health recommends consulting a specialist or family doctor.