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Live a Happier Life

By practicing mindfulness techniques regularly you can start feeling calmer, more relaxed and less anxious about your life events which will allow you to live a happier life without being consumed by negativity.

Break Anxiety's Grip on You

Anxiety is the most common mental health issue in America. It affects 40 million adults, and 18% of people will experience it at some point during their life.

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Anxiety

Anxiety and anxiety-related disorders have reached epidemic proportions in our culture today. For many reasons, our modern world creates the conditions for anxiety problems of all kinds. Examples include: panic attacks, obsessive compulsive thoughts and behavior, constant worry, and physical symptoms of anxiety such as muscle tension and gastrointestinal problems.


If you have come here because you are struggling with anxiety, know that you are by no means alone. 
 

Anxiety is the most common mental health issue in America. It affects 40 million adults, and 18% of people will experience it at some point during their life.

Anxiety is a normal human response to real or imagined danger. You may be surprised to know that anxiety is not the problem. Instead, it is how we respond to the anxiety that creates more anxiety and other types of problems that bring people into therapy.

 

Anxiety feels so bad sometimes that you just want it to go away. You may feel desperate to get some relief. But in reality, the more we try to get rid of our anxiety the worse it can become. You may resort to methods of distraction and even drugs or alcohol to get rid of anxiety. But as you may realize, those strategies “work” only in the very short term.

 

But there is a solution that actually helps both now and in the long term.

 

The solution is mindfulness!

 

When we learn to encounter anxiety, as well as other emotions, in a mindful way, we find that it naturally resolves and feels more manageable.

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Here are a few of the reasons that mindfulness works so well for relieving anxiety:

  • Anxiety is fueled by thoughts and worries about what could happen in the future. Mindfulness teaches us to stay in the present moment.
     

  • Anxiety gets worse when we try to stop feeling it. Mindfulness helps us to feel the anxiety in an accepting way.
     

  • Anxiety grows when we judge ourselves for feeling it. Mindfulness shows us how we can be kinder and more compassionate toward ourselves.

This is wonderful news for all of us!

 

However, it can be challenging to change how you have been responding to anxiety. After all we are usually responding in automatic and instinctual ways.

 

That is where we come in! Let the therapists at Austin Mindfulness Center come alongside you. We will help you to understand how you are caught in a struggle with anxiety. We will teach you the mindfulness skills that will help release you from the struggle. Finally, we will walk with you as you learn to integrate the skills into your daily life.

 

We are glad you found us and we want you to know that facing your anxiety by seeking therapy is the crucial first step in alleviating your pain.

 

Please reach out and schedule an appointment today.

Articles re: Anxiety

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Guided Meditations

You may listen to these audio tracks here or you can download them for free onto your mobile device to listen to anywhere, anytime. Feel free to share these tracks with your loved ones!

Listen from Anywhere!

Just tap on an a play button below to listen.

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What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment and with an open and curious intention. It is a way of cultivating a part of your brain that can observe without reactivity or the need to avoid or escape what is there in the present moment. 

We have been conditioned to operate in the doing mode of mind, where our minds tend to feel more useful. It's familiar and allows our minds to run on autopilot for a lot of our lives. This leads to a number of problems. If you are on autopilot, you are probably functioning o.k. on the outside in order to get things done, but you are not present for it. Instead you may be in the past or in the future. This isn't always "bad." But when the past is filled with regret or pain and the future is filled with fear or anxiety, we tend to experience these things as if they were happening now. But they aren't. And this leads to suffering. 

On the other hand, the "being" mode of mind simply observes, but also disengages the brain activity that elicit emotional reactivity, worry, panic, hopelessness, depression, and many other negative patterns of your mental life. By engaging the being mode of mind, you create psychological flexibility and thus, more options, and more freedom.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Regular mindfulness practice has been proven to provide the following benefits:
 

  • Less stress

  • Increased working memory

  • Better focus and attention span

  • Lower anxiety and depression

  • Less emotional reactivity

  • More cognitive flexibility

  • Positive affect (good mood)

  • Quicker recovery following fight/flight response

  • Increased immune functioning

  • Increased capacity for empathy

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Do You Suffer from Panic Attacks?

If not addressed, anxiety can often lead to panic, panic attacks, and eventually panic disorder,  depression, and worse

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After suffering from panic attacks for years, the owner and Executive Director of the Austin Mindfulness Center, Dr. Kristin Vaughn, discovered mindfulness. Learning from her own personal experience with panic attacks, and years of providing therapy for her clients, Dr. Vaughn set out on a mission to bring clarity and relief to panic sufferers. In 2018, she created Hello Panic, a community for education and healing designed for individuals who suffer from panic attacks.

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If you suffer from severe anxiety and panic, consider visiting hellopanic.com to learn more. From there, you can join our Facebook group, download helpful eBooks and infographics, and watch instructional videos of Dr. Vaughn explaining how you can free yourself from the grips of panic once and for all!

There is nothing worse than a panic attack! The Hello Panic program is my life's mission to help the world overcome anxiety and panic so we can all live our best possible lives.

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- Dr. Kristin Vaughn, Owner of the Austin Mindfulness Center and Creator of Hello Panic

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