How do I deal with anxiety and stress?

Thoughts of worry and thoughts of fear are fearful forces within us. They poison the very sources of life and destroy the harmony, the running efficiency, the vitality and vigour. While the opposite thoughts of cheerfulness, joy and courage, heal, soothe, instead of irritating, and immensely augment efficiency and multiply the mental powers. Be always cheerful. Smile. Laugh.

When you are very busy in your daily work, you may not harbour any impure thought; but when you take rest and leave the mind blank, the impure thoughts will try to enter insidiously. You must be careful when the mind is relaxed. Thoughts gain strength by repetition. If you entertain an impure thought or good thought once, this impure thought or good thought has a tendency to recur again. Thoughts crowd together just as the birds of the same feather flock together. So also, if you entertain one impure thought all sorts of impure thoughts join together and attack you. If you entertain any good thought, all good thoughts join together to help you. Subdue Negative Thoughts Learn to subdue, to purify, to order all your thoughts. Fight against all negative thoughts and doubts. Let sublime divine thoughts come to you from every side. Thoughts of depression, failure, weakness, darkness, doubts, fear, etc., are negative thoughts. Cultivate positive thoughts of strength, confidence, courage, cheerfulness. The negative thoughts will disappear. Fill the mind with divine thoughts, by Japa, Prayer, Dhyana and study of holy books. Be indifferent to all negative and undivine thoughts. They will pass away. Do not struggle with them. Pray to God for strength. Read the lives of saints. Study the Bhagavata and the Ramayana. All devotees have passed through similar ordeals. So, take heart.

Every change in thought makes a vibration in your mental body and this when transmitted to the physical body causes activity in the nervous matter of your brain. This activity in the nervous cells causes many electrical and chemical changes in them. It is thought-activity which causes these changes. Intense passion, hatred, longstanding bitter jealousy, corroding anxiety, fits of hot temper actually destroy the cells of the body and induce diseases of the heart, liver, kidneys, spleen and stomach. It is a point worthy to note with care that every cell in the body suffers or grows, receives a life impulse or a death impulse, from every thought that enters the mind, for you tend to grow into the image of that which you think about most. When the mind is turned to a particular thought and dwells on it, a definite vibration of matter is set up and often, more of this vibration is caused, the more does it tend to repeat itself to become a habit, to become automatic. The body follows the mind and imitates its changes. If you concentrate your thought the eyes become fixed.

The best method of gaining mental power is by entertaining sublime, noble and good thoughts and through their aid controlling the dissipative, distractive, diversifying, worldly and base thoughts. When all evil thought harasses the mind, the best method of conquering it is by ignoring it. How can we ignore an evil thought? By forgetting it. How can we forget? By not indulging in it again, and also by not brooding over it. How can we prevent the mind from indulging in it again or brooding over it? By thinking of something very interesting, something sublime and inspiring. Ignore, forget, think of something inspiring; these three constitute the great Sadhana for establishing mastery over evil thoughts.