Reddit reviews Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life

Cool, lets start with something simple, REMEMBER baby steps is key with anxiety otherwise things will just escalate in your head and you won't be able to do much. I'd recommend buying a kindle (like amazon's paperwhite) and reading a self help book to start the ball rolling as it will make you understand how the mind works etc which is crucial to fixing it, I'd recommended a book by John Arden called How to rewire your brain! http://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291
Also, do you watch any comedy shows at all on a daily basis Cheers

I've given this answer multiple times but it always gets buried. Not that I expect a sentence or two to really get upvoted that much.

More important OP is for YOU to pay attention to it.

I am one of those people who has read hundreds of self-improvement books, and tried a lot of different things. It's been pretty much a hobby of mine for close to 20 years now.

Go buy this book. [Rewire Your Brain] by John B. Arden. This is your new bible. You will get better

The practice itself is basically brain maintenance is just something that happens when you have decent meditation sessions. Vipassana / TM stuff is good at this and pretty accessible, it allows you to do most of the stuff you can do with meditation and is aimed at people just starting. Sam Harris honestly gets 90% of what you need to know about spirituality and meditation done in that video I linked, I really urge you to get all the way through, since he will cover most of your response to the material within the material.

Religious belief (or any all encompassing belief) can be extremely useful for meditation in the more advanced levels because you have an amazing source for humility, something that is really important when it comes to reflection on your own ego (spiritual ego definition, not Freudian definition).

As for books, they are typically written from a psychology perspective, a lot of it is just about a high level method for change, rather than investigations of actual volition mechanisms that choose one action over another as a function of your state-of-mind. Ie... trying to intellectually will yourself to do something when your brain as a whole is in a depressed state will often result in poor results as the volition mechanism will be overwhelmed by the depressed state, reason and intellect will be ignored. 'Rewire Your Brain' was fun, but hit and miss like most of the material due to the lack of consideration stated here (IMHO).

So I guess for me the first step was just sort of coming to an understanding that drinking really isn't adding anything, but that it is taking so much away... and just listing all of those things, like verbally or in pen or something, because what happens is you realize how often you are making the same stupid mistakes... Like once you have said it allowed or written it down, every time it happens you have to acknowledge that it also happened yesterday, and the day before, and it was really bad the time before that... It was just getting exhausting.

So I just was getting so tired of it, like it sounds like you are, so I set a date. Didn't make any changes in the mean time, was still drinking, still saying yes every time somebody asked me if I wanted to go out, still kept doing the "just one more" dance, carried on with the daily hangovers etc... but I had my date set and for a full month it got to the point where I just couldn't wait to reach the date, I was so ready for it.

In the interim, I read a couple of books about neuroplasticity and habit formation that I found really helpful. If you only read one book, my suggestion would be The Power of Habit, but I also read Rewire Your Brain which was also super helpful, and I just ordered "The easy way to stop drinking" which is linked in the sidebar at /r/stopdrinking, so we'll see what that has to say.

So I guess what I have been doing is really just focusing on the positives, because I was just getting so so tired of the bullshit and I had this image in my head of what I want my life to be like when I get to a point where the urge to drink isn't constantly in my head. So, with a several page long list in hand of all the little triggers, and a really really really long list of reasons why I wanted to do this in case I forget, the day finally came and so I told my family what I was doing, and decided to start working on all the things I was excited about, like books and hobbies and stuff. Apart from the hangover that day I was pretty excited...

Unfortunately, it didn't go well to start because I didn't sleep a wink for days, so I was in really, reeeeally bad shape, but truthfully I had prepped my head for enough time that the desire to go back just so I could get some sleep wasn't unmanageable, especially because I know that if I drank I'd just have to go through the bullshit all over again... So now it's been almost a week, I'm kinda starting to function again normally, and I'm feeling so much better than I have in a very long time already, even though I still haven't slept well still... I also went to buy coffee yesterday and I thought "I better check my checking account balance, I don't want my card to get declined here AGAIN..." and I was pretty shocked to see I had $80 in there, that never happens by this time of month... So I'm just focusing on these awesome little changes as much as I can, every positive little change or occurrence I make a point of paying attention to so that I don't lose momentum...

Also, posting at /r/stopdrinking every day has been super helpful because my brain is running like 1000 miles per hour faster than usual, so it is super helpful just unload there, and somebody responds every time within minutes.

I would recommend Rewire you Brain by John B. Arden.

http://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I'm so sorry! I was in the same situation with my parents and family members.

I have read a ton of books on the subject, and I would recommend reading [Rewire Your Brain] (https://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291). It's very practical, and has really helped me with my fight with anxiety.
Also try the OCD workbook. You may not be diagnosed with OCD, but this book helps you battle the intrusive and ruminating thoughts.

Also, try meditation and Mindfulness Exercises. I thought it was a bunch of malarky before I tried it. It has made a world of difference. [This website] (http://www.mindful.org/meditation/mindfulness-getting-started/) will help you get started.

Please don't be afraid to hop onto reddit and chat with the rest of us. We really want to help!

Some others have already said it but the trick is there is no trick. You just get up and do it, not think about it, when you start to think about it you are already stuck. Wake up, get up. Not wake up and start thinking about how hard it is to get up or how much you don't want to get up yet etc. Just wake up and do it, eventually you will start to build a routine and it will be easier or you may even start to look forward to it. Take some sort of positive action, do anything even if it is minor. But do it regularly, stick with it for a set amount of time even if you aren't seeing immediate results just give yourself a chance to build some momentum, like maybe 30 or 60 days. You did not become the way you are overnight and you will not break those habits overnight either.

I would suggest exercise being one of those things, proper diet is a big one too, meditation can also have a major impact. In addition to doing something regularly I personally found cbt helpful. It may take a little time to get into the swing of it but start noticing and reframing negative thoughts add much at possible. Look into therapy if you can, if you can't afford it lots of areas have free or reduced rate therapy available for those with financial troubles and even though some people demonize the idea medication can may be worth looking into if making lifestyle changes isn't helping you may have a brain chemistry that is slightly out of the normal range.

Remember life is made up of experiences, you take those experiences to be "you" but they are not, they are just experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc. if you change them you will change your "self" in the process. I recommend this http://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291 book to anyone who wants or feels they need a deeper understanding, but remember to just do something without overthinking it, so don't start reading the book and then not do anything. I like that book in particular because it is not really self help per se although it does have those elements to it, the ideas in it are practical and backed by science. If you do it, it WILL work.

http://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458951103&sr=8-1&keywords=rewire+your+brain+think+your+way+to+a+better+life

Pretty broad book but talks a lot about changing behavior through change brain chemistry.

Just posted this elsewhere but http://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291. A lifetime of reading self-help and this is hands down the best. Not all rah-rah motivational, just straight up instructions of empirically verified methods. Not entirely focused on just the thinking process directly, but also what habits to cultivate to promote positive thinking. Seriously, I cannot recommend this book enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Brain-Think-Better/dp/0470487291

Fala de padrões de pensamento e como eles influenciam o seu comportamento.