Everything takes time and effort. This has to be true of virtually everything in life worth doing. It might be especially true when overcoming social anxiety disorder (SAD).

Several recent studies it have shown that social anxiety is very treatable with CBT. It just takes time to go through the process of change. But it also seems to be common that people give up before they have gotten all the benefits they can.

When you do the right things SAD will go away and you will be free. When you do the wrong things it will not go away and you will remain trapped.

I have defined the 3 biggest stumbling blocks that will hamper your progress and keep you trapped.

What the video and see the stumbling blocks before you stumble over them

Use The Panic Pit Stop Program to escape from Social Anxiety Disorder

I have written a blog post and recorded a podcast with the intention of helping you to learn how to rewire your brain out of intense anxiety and even depression.

I have extracted the principles of many years of clinical practice into a simple to follow path you can take if you are interested in removing anxiety from your life. I have even estimated how long it will take you to do it. If anxiety is a problem you struggle with, I am sure you will find the podcast particularly interesting.

http://drpurves.com/anxiety/how-to-rewire-your-brain/

Sometimes your immune system can turn against you and this causes things like rheumatoid arthritis. Your immune system is what protects you from biological threats so when it turns against you this is a bad thing. Your fear system is also designed to keep you safe. It does that by making sure that when there is a genuine threat you get away from it and so survive to live another day. But, what happens when your fear system turns against you.What does that look like? Well it looks like panic and anxiety. Fortunately  there is treatment for autoimmune diseases and there is treatment for anxiety. Check out www.drpurves.online to find out more.

How to retrain your amygdala

This is a more technical sounding email and blog post but it also has the virtue of being true.

You can change your experience.

A short while ago I listened to a snippet on the BBC Today program. Dr Liam Mason was interviewed about the role of CBT in retraining the brain in sufferers of psychosis. It was shown that CBT physically changes the brain.

There is robust research using brain imaging techniques showing the change in brain structure connections following CBT. In serious mental health problems like depression and schizophrenia (psychosis) there is of evidence of functional disconnectivity between brain structures that process facial and social emotional signals. This means that people who suffer these problems are more likely to misinterpret faces expressions and social situations as threatening.

This may sound trivial but in Schizophrenia, depression and in many anxiety disorders there is convincing evidence that many people have a bias that...

What physical habits do you have that when amplified can reveal something about your deeper unconscious processes? It is well known in psycho-therapeutic circles that the body holds onto emotional experiences in ways that you would not imagine it could. Stress is locked into the frown of the face. Tension is locked into the shoulders and traumatic experiences can be locked into body shapes or postures. In this video I explain a little more about how you can interrogate your habitual physical habits and why it might be important to do that. 

Watch this video and please leave comments.

Your whole life experience is the sum total of the micro decisions you make. Therefore it obviously makes sense to pay attention to the kinds of decisions you are making. Watch this video and see what I mean.

It's easy to fail to recognize what our real problem is because we are busy looking at the the bigger, wider problem. In this video I explore the issues of small un-noticed problems that prevent bigger problems from being solved.

This really bites when I meet someone who has been stuck with a problem for over 20 years when in reality it can be solved! And without too much bother!

Anxiety or depression might be the problems you identify in yourself but these are merely consequences of deeper problems. Things like negative thinking, Catastrophizing and using irrational thought processes; being self critical, judgmental and using false control strategies. However these are only the more visible consequences of even deeper processes. And it is these that you must work on to have a happy and satisfying life. These 3rd level processes are simply so commonplace that you can fail to notice then.  But when you manage these all of the seemingly big problems just fade away. It seems to me that this is the place to put your attention and make the changes that will enhance your life.

This video explains the 3 levels and shows you where you really need to put your attention.

The 3 Levels of Problems and Why they really matter

I was pleased and a little surprised to learn that I have 456 videos on You Tube now. So I went way back and pulled this from the archive. The information it contains is so profound it could almost be classified as a secret of life. If you struggle with panic, anxiety, depression or stress you really do need to watch this. Or, if you feel like a secret of life might be useful today check it out.

Anxiety is the feeling of inappropriate fear. You MUST push back against this if you want to put fear back in it's box and be able to expand your life to take all the possibilities that actually exist for you. It is as simple as that. So don't make decisions based on inappropriate fear. Expand your comfort zone and keep pushing it until you are comfortable out there in the wider world.

Check out this video and get the bigger picture.