Thanks for inviting me in, Lisa. I'm trying to be consistent with mindfulness meditation; I know it helps because it helps me to see how transitory my thoughts are and how my ``monkey mind'' loves to jump from one thing to another and wants me to follow those jumps ad infinitum, which never takes me to a good place. I'm currently starting on ``The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety.'' Its approach is a bit different and I like it; it seems a little more realistic for me. I do find it helpful to try to stay in the present and to remind myself when scary or anxiety-inducing thoughts come into my head ``thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking'' and let them pass on out. (For me, anxiety is more of a problem than depression. Depression I really don't like, but I know what it is and it doesn't scare me, just bums me out. Anxiety can scare the hell out of me and send me into a seemingly endless thought loop that just gets scarier and scarier until I'm almost in phobia territory. It limits my world severely, so that's why I'm focusing on dealing with anxiety.) And exercise helps; so does intentionally shifting my mental focus away from navel-gazing to other things; watching my diet and being especially careful about sugar and caffeine. Low blood sugar in itself can bring on an anxiety attack and the symptoms of low blood sugar are very similar to those of an anxiety or panic attack.

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