Crazy, irrational thoughts

For the past six years my anxiety had manifested by scanning my brain for what would be the absolute worse thing in the world and fixating on it. Sometimes it's things like cancer. .. recently, and this is so irrational, I'm anxious about sleep walking and walking out of the house or turning the stove on. I've never slept walk in my life! When I'm not anxious I know it's ridiculous but try telling me that when I'm anxious and I'll find a million pieces of evidence to back my fear.

Does anyone have good mantra they repeat during those times or any tricks for reframing negative thoughts?

Mantras are great! I use them often. Our anxious brains come up with all sorts of things to fixate and worry about. Since there is no actual immediate threat for us to deal with...yet all of the physiological stressors are happening in our bodies, our minds often get caught up in a worry cycle.

One way to break the cycle is with counter the negative/scary thoughts with postive/rational ones.:) The words that we say to ourselves (both consciously and subconsciously) have power! So when we make declarations to ourselves, they have an effect.

For me, I tend to focus on health anxiety, and worry about the physical symptoms of anxiety that I experience...so my go to mantra is:

"I am okay, this is just anxiety making me feel this way."

This could work for you...you may just want to switch out the word 'feel' for 'think'.

Or you could try:

"These thoughts do not represent reality, they are a product of anxiety, and I have the power to change them with my rational thinking."

I have heard others talk about visualizing a huge red stop sign when the intrusive thoughts barge in.

...and of course, distraction is always good. Getting busy with an activity that involves concentration, or is just fun helps to diffuse the negative/scary thinking.

I wish you the best with this. Keep posting!

S.C.