Archive for the 'Social Anxiety' Category
New SAD Research Study at Stanford
July 15th, 2009 by Ryan Oelke
Recently, the Standford Psychology Department let us know about a wonderful research study they’re doing on social anxiety, on that you could participate in. Here’s the info they passed to us:
If you’re looking for help with Social Anxiety Disorder, one option to consider is participating in research studies. At the Stanford Psychology Department, the CAAN lab is doing a study on social anxiety, and offering free treatment as a part of the research.
We are conducting a study measuring the effects of different stress reduction therapies.
The Wellness Program works on:
1. Improving physical fitness through cardiovascular and weight training
2. Stretching your body to enhance flexibility and improve posture
3. Implementing changes in your life towards better diet, sleep, and exercise habits
The Mindfulness Program works on:
1. Training in purposefully directing your attention from moment to moment, without critical judgment
2. Enhancing awareness and acceptance of external events as well as internal thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations
3. Implementing a meditation practice in your life to cultivate these skills
Mindfulness classes are once a week and take place either on Stanford campus, or around the San Francisco Bay area. The Wellness program involves a one-on-one meeting with a coach, to tailor a Wellness course for you, with a requirement of participation in a group fitness class of your choice. The study is 8 weeks long, with research assessments before and after the treatment.
You can find out more here.
The first step to determine eligibility for either of these studies is a 15-20 minute phone interview. Give us a call at 650-723-5977 when you have 20 minutes free, or email your name, number, and some good times to call and we will try to reach you. Email us at caan.mbsr [at] gmail [dot] com.
Small Delay and a Pleasant Distraction
August 25th, 2008 by Aaron
I’m a little later than I’d like to be in getting up the next post about my experiences with EEG biofeedback. I’m working on breaking it up into digestible chunks while waiting for website work to finish so I can load a post up with links.
On another note, if you have some time and are looking for a little entertainment you can head over to take a look at one of the projects that has been taking up my time lately. It’s a webcomic my friend and I are putting together. Thirty some strips so far. It’s probably one of the only (don’t want to say THE only given how large a place the internet is) webcomics about a depressed cartoon bear written by someone with SAD.
Hope you enjoy. Mr. Huggins & Snugglypoo. First strip is here.
The Reason for Renewed Posting
August 14th, 2008 by Aaron
Now I want to get into the reason I decided to renew posting at Anxious Living.
For the last four months I have been doing a form of therapy known as EEG biofeedback (previously more commonly referred to as neurofeedback). On the most basic level it is a system that allows the brain to get information about itself and thereby correct certain imbalances or traumas. As I get into further posts describing the process in more detail I’ll provide plenty of links. For now I’d like to concentrate on my initial experience.
I was skeptical when first offered the chance to try the therapy. Skeptical, but curious. Anything that might work was worth a shot.
Since We Stopped Posting
August 7th, 2008 by Aaron
I experienced a real burst of progress when I first realized I had SAD and began to see clearly how it had affected my life. I was able to put a lot of very frustrating things into perspective and lighten up about my worst moments. Writing posts for this site was a big part of that.
But eventually, around the time the posting stopped, I began to feel like, no matter how much progress I made or effort I put into getting better, the intense discomfort I felt in difficult situations made lasting improvement something of a mirage.
Re-Introducing Anxious Living
August 4th, 2008 by Aaron
As you may (or may not) have noticed this site hasn’t been terribly active lately. To put it succinctly, we stopped posting. And Anxious Living probably would have slipped into that place reserved for Internet sites that never get updated, despite the best of intentions, if not for a lucky set of circumstances on my part.
Something unexpected and very positive has happened and I want to share it here because it has had such a powerful effect on my social anxiety. I have had a major reduction in the physical symptoms of social anxiety and the associated thoughts are loosening their hold. This is thanks to a very specific form of therapy I have been doing for the last three months.
I’ll get into that therapy fully with a handful of posts and provide links so that anyone interested in trying what has helped me so much will know who to contact. But for right now I want to establish this site as active once again. My next post will be a catch up post and then I’ll get into the story of what has happened with this therapy.
I’d like to take this opportunity to invite anyone who is dealing with SAD to write for this site. Please contact us with stories you’d like to share or insights you’ve gained. Take a look through the archives and see if anything we have written speaks to you. We’d love to see a post about your reaction to a particular topic we once covered. Anything at all will be welcomed. I would like to keep this site going once again.
Fundamental Distrust
April 18th, 2007 by Aaron
I keep going over my insecurities, my anxieties. I pick them apart in a journal I keep on my laptop. Each time I get anxious I try to take a look at exactly what is happening to me, what caused the anxiety, what thoughts are attached, what is my reaction, anything I can learn.
One thing that keeps coming up, even in the smallest of moments, is that I fundamentally do not trust myself. It started as a flash of insight, a kind of recognition of the obviousness of something I had been dancing around for some time, and grew form there. Over the last few weeks I have begun to understand just how many parts of my life it affects.
Appropriateness for a Third Time
March 31st, 2007 by Aaron
What I wrote about in my last post (trying to avoid any actions that might make those around me uncomfortable) applies equally well to my reaction to other people. People that seem to behave inappropriately for whatever kind of group they are with make me very uneasy. I get uncomfortable. I feel embarrassed for that person and embarrassed for the people around them, who have to react to what they have done.
Some part of me wishes deeply that I could somehow stop or prevent their behavior. If I could, I’d make it so that no one ever does anything embarrassing, so that no one ever acts inappropriately.
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