Andrew Bernstein Quotes

The reason humans experience so much more stress than other species isn't just because we think more, but also because we think differently.

It's time we learned the truth about stress. It's time we identified the thoughts that actually create our stress and learned to dismantle them one by one.

The number of stressors has multiplied exponentially: traffic, money, success, work/life balance, the economy, the environment, parenting, family conflict, relationships, disease. As the nature of human life has become far more complicated, our ancient stress response hasn't been able to keep up.

What's taking place during stress is actually much simpler than a transaction between stressful life events and you. There aren't two parties involved in stress. There is only one - your own mind.

Anxiety is a natural thing humans have. You know, that's how we evolve. That's how we are, you know, we think things through. Sometimes my mind just thinks things through a lot.

The truth is, I'm not a coper. I hate stress. I might appear calm externally but internally it's all going on.

The less you think counterfactually, the less you experience stress. Stress, in this light, isn't a bad thing. It's simply a warning system telling you that your mind has lost touch with what's real.

The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

Stress is a byproduct of subconscious beliefs you have about the world. You can't choose not to believe something. You believe it because you think it's true. To eliminate stress, you must learn to challenge these beliefs so that you see them differently.

There is no such thing as stress; only people thinking stressful thoughts.

Thought rules mankind.

You can't tell yourself that your stress is produced in your head and feel better. You still need to learn how to create a change.

I did a lot of thinking, and used mental activity to relieve whatever feelings I had. I became very left-brained, and I was good in school. That is, I was a smart kid.

The number of stressors has multiplied exponentially: traffic, money, success, work/life balance, the economy, the environment, parenting, family conflict, relationships, disease. As the nature of human life has become far more complicated, our ancient stress response hasn't been able to keep up.

Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom.

I think I think too much. That's why I drink!

Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but they are worlds apart.

So many people are struggling to create happiness while their brain is inundated by noise. If your brain is receiving too much information, it automatically thinks you're under threat and scans the world for the negative first. Because the brain is limited, whatever you attend to first becomes your reality.

I'd like to be able to do complex math in my head. Any kind of adversity and I become very anxious, but if you're a robot, you have good equilibrium. I wish I was cooler under pressure, like a robot.

Crying, that is, sobbing is the earliest and deepest way to release tension. Infants can cry almost from the moment of birth, and do so easily following every stress that produces a state of tension in the body... Human beings are the only creatures who can react in this way to stress and tension. Most probably, they are the only ones who need this form of release.

By putting yourself in that intense form of stress, it makes regular life more peaceful.

I think stress is anything going on in our lives that impinges on our capacity to have optimum well being.

But it turns out that people who are grounded and secure don't change much under stress. That's what being grounded means.

I think thoughts in my head bounce around in my skull and, if they keep bouncing around in my skull, they get worse and worse. When they come out of my mouth, they make people happy.