Take our Generalized Anxiety Disorder Test

Find a therapist to overcome anxiety

You don't need to fight or fix your troublesome thoughts.

When you name your thoughts you create distance from them.

The more you create space between you and your thoughts, the less you feel a need to obey them.

"I'm having the thought that..." as I write this post, some readers may not appreciate it as much as I do. Those 5 words, I'm having the thought that may not sound like much. But they come from the principles of the well-respected, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and they can fundamentally change your relationship with anxious thinking. And, by that I mean for the better—big time.

When a child says, "What if I fail my test tomorrow?" or a teen spirals into "What if they think I'm weird", or an adult lies awake obsessing about, "What if........

© Psychology Today