Introduction: Eat Your Problems
Overview of the Book:
“Eat Your Problems” is a self-help guidebook designed to help you tackle common psychological challenges that hinder your personal and professional growth. This book provides practical solutions for common psychological challenges like overthinking, lack of focus, procrastination, and more. Each chapter explains the underlying causes of each problem, discusses its effects on life, and gives simple, practical solutions that anyone can apply instantly to overcome their issues. All the causes, effects, and solutions for each problem mentioned in this book are backed up by science various research conducted, and also by author’s personal experiance making this book highly effective and universally applicable.
The Concept of “Eat Your Problems“
The concept of this book is about directly confronting and addressing your issues instead of avoiding or ignoring them. Just like a balanced diet provides nutrients that strengthen your body, dealing with your problems helps nourish and fortify your mind and spirit.
In our daily lives, it’s often easier to avoid dealing with problems, whether they are personal, professional, or psychological. This avoidance can cause unresolved issues to pile up, which can gradually harm our overall well-being, similar to how an unhealthy diet can harm our bodies. When we eat our problems, we take an active role in our mental and emotional health by breaking down these issues into manageable parts and addressing them systematically.
This approach involves understanding the root causes of our problems, recognizing their impacts on our lives, and finding practical solutions to resolve them. For example, Managing our overthinking can prevent mental exhaustion and improve decision-making. Killing the habit of procrastination can lead to increased productivity and reduced stress. Tackling social anxiety can help us form meaningful relationships and engage confidently in social situations.
The benefits of this approach go beyond solving individual problems. By actively dealing with challenges, we build resilience, self-awareness, and a sense of empowerment. We become better equipped to handle future difficulties and could enjoy a more fulfilling and balanced life.
How to Use This Book?
To solve any problems in life, you first need to understand their root cause, how they occurred, their effects on your life, and how to effectively solve them. This book is not just for reading; it’s for reading and practicing. After learning about the cause of your problem, you need to apply the solutions in your life by practicing them daily. Otherwise, the book won’t work for you. It’s like watching many self-help videos while lying in bed, feeling good but not taking any action.
This book is designed to give you practical tools and ideas that you can use right away. You can read it cover-to-cover or just the chapters that relate to your current situation. Each chapter offers causes, effect and practical proven methods to help you make lasting changes.
Chapter 1: Overthinking
What is Overthinking?
Overthinking in simple words means “excessively thinking about something” which can involve repeatedly thinking about the past, present, or future events that can be good or bad which have occurred, have not occurred, and will or will not occur. You might be confused about what I am talking about so I have broken it down in simple words below:
Past events- These can be bad experiences like accidents, breakups, shameful/awkward movements, fights, getting scolded by someone, etc.
Present events- These can be any bad experiences like the ones we discussed in past events or they can also be good events like getting appreciation, promotion, money, etc.
Future events- These can be both bad or good things that can happen or will never occur like the same we discussed in past and present events.
Each event (past/present/future) has different effects, causes, and solutions that I will further discuss in this chapter.
Causes of Overthinking:
Overthinking can be caused by three main factors which are over expectation, over-estimation, and life traumas. Here’s a breakdown of each:
Over expetation- This occurs when you excessively expect something excessively that may happen or will not occur. But remember that thinking and anticipating something is not always bad if it’s achievable or it’s in a controlled manner but, thinking about something extremely is bad and will make you sadder and depressed for eg. You are a person doing a job and getting a salary of Rs 30000 a month but you are overthinking of buying a privet jet which is not possible but instead of this if you think stepwise and make a proper plan that first I will learn a new skill then will monetize it, create a brand, manage the money and than I will buy a privet jet then it can be likely possible.
Over estimation- It means estimating about something excessively that can happen or will not occur like what if everyone laughs at me if I make some mistakes while delivering a speech, what if that girl ignores me if I talk to her, what if he/ she will get offended if I disagree to what they are saying or in my case what if no one buys this books, etc. This type of negative thoughts will always demotivate you and will not let you complete your work.
Life traumas- we human beings can record things whether it’s long-term or short-term all the past experiences whether it’s good or bad are recorded in our subconscious mind and those experiences are the reflection of who we are today, but our mind only plays those memories into thoughts if it’s extremely bad or vice versa because we consciously can only remember those things that are into extremity for eg. Do you know about any deadly accidents that have happened to you? Do you know what was the day, time, and detail event of that day? It’s because your mind records and remembers those extreme things. Those thoughts of bad life experiences will not let you take steps in life again so it is important to solve them.
Research says that overthinking can have a genetic component. Studies suggest that there is a hereditary aspect to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, which are often linked to overthinking. If someone has a family history of these conditions, they may be more predisposed to overthinking.
Effects of Overthinking:
Overthinking can have a major impact on your life. Hereshow
Comfort Zone- Overthinking can keep you from stepping out of your comfort zone because when you are continually concerned about the consequences of what may happen if you try anything new, you may never take the risk. This fear will make you stay in a continuous loop of overthinking.
Self-doubt- Overthinking causes you to doubt yourself. You could keep wondering, “What if I fail?” “What if it’s embarrassing?” “What if no one cares?” These questions undermine your confidence and make you hesitant to act. Self-doubt prevents you from achieving your goals.
Anxiety and Panic Attacks- Overthinking past events can result in tension, anxiety, and panic attacks. Replaying negative situations or thinking the worst might keep you tense all the time.This continual tension can cause physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, perspiration, and difficult in breathing.
Time Wasting- Overthinking consumes a lot of time. It rapidly depletes your brain’s energy and keeps you in a never-ending cycle of ideas. This mental weariness not only wastes your time but also makes it difficult to concentrate on vital activities. The longer you spend overthinking, the less time you have for important things.
Solutions to overthinking:
There are tons of books, research papers, and videos on the solution to overthinking, but here are the best practical solutions that I have broken down below:
Staying Busy- You are overthinking because you are not busy with your work. You don’t have a clear future goal in mind, so you are mostly staying at home alone, not talking to anyone, or not going outside in social situations. As a result, your mind is empty and not focused on doing a task. Negative thoughts continuously haunt you. The first thing to do to kill the overthinking problem is to have a clear future goal in mind. Create a daily task list to achieve it, learn skills for it, and work for it. Daily exercise helps supply more oxygen to the brain and will make you feel refreshed. Lastly, don’t stay at home too much. Go outside, meet with good supportive friends, and be in social situations as much as possible.
Meditation- Have you wondered why monks are very peaceful and silent all the time? It’s because they have mastered the control of their thoughts with the help of meditation. There are various ways to meditate, like mantra meditation, chakra meditation, guided meditation, etc. Regardless of the type, the main intention of meditation is to be in a thoughtless state and focus on one thing at a time. Choose a type of meditation that you like and do it daily for at least 10-15 minutes. Alternatively, you can meditate every other day and try different types to avoid getting bored.
Look at It- What does this mean? We can never completely get rid of thoughts because it is the most basic and important biological nature that makes us different from other animals. Thoughts are what make us care for others, experience different emotions according to the situation, and progressive because we think about the future. Thinking is normal, but overthinking is not. A 2020 study suggested that people typically have more than 6,000 thoughts per day, so it is impossible to stop them completely. The difference between normal and successful people is that normal people have random, unrealistic thoughts, while successful people have clear, realistic, and structured thoughts. So, when a random thought comes into your mind, don’t try to avoid it because the more you try, the more it comes. Instead, when it comes, try to look at it and ask what it is about. See the magic of it vanishing.
If you like the concept of the book you can read it all here- Eat your problems
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