Too much abilify

Abilify Side Effects | Compulsive Behavior & Withdrawal Symptoms

Common Abilify (aripiprazole) side effects include nausea, vomiting, headache, insomnia and weight gain. Serious Abilify side effects include tardive dyskinesia and neuroleptic malignant syndrome. Stopping Abilify may cause withdrawal. Abilify withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, panic attacks and sweating.

Common Abilify Side Effects

Common side effects of Abilify include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, anxiety, insomnia, constipation, movement disorders and restlessness. The most common side effect is headaches.

Abilify, also known as aripiprazole, is an atypical antipsychotic medication that doctors prescribe for major depressive disorder, bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia, and to manage irritability from autism spectrum disorder or Tourette’s syndrome in children.

Other common side effects of Abilify include:

Blurred vision
Drooling
Drops in blood pressure when standing up
Constipation
Choking or trouble swallowing

Sleepiness is a common Abilify side effect for children ages 6 to 18. Other side effects for children include headache, nausea, vomiting, insomnia, movement disorders, increased appetite and weight gain.

If the drug does not reduce psychiatric symptoms, consider asking your doctor to switch you to a different antipsychotic medication.

Serious Side Effects of Abilify

Abilify can cause serious side effects, many of which can be dangerous to long-term physical and mental health. These include seizures, involuntary muscle movements and neuroleptic malignant syndrome. The drug is also associated with harmful metabolic changes, including weight gain, increased cholesterol, low white blood cell counts, insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Abilify can cause new and worsening suicidal thoughts and impulse control disorders. People experiencing impulse control while taking Abilify might engage in behaviors such as compulsive gambling, hypersexuality, compulsive shopping and spontaneous wandering. Recent reports suggest Abilify might also cause obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behaviors.

Black Box Warning for Elderly Dementia Patients

Abilify’s drug label includes a black box warning stating that elderly people with dementia who take the drug are at an increased risk of death. In clinical trials, elderly people with dementia taking atypical antipsychotics such as Abilify were 1.7 times more likely to die than those in the control group.

Clinical data does not spell out the reason for this increased mortality risk, but suggests the problem is caused by multiple factors. Elderly people who take antipsychotics such as Abilify are more likely to suffer strokes, which are often fatal within this population. They may also be more vulnerable to cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and serious infections such as pneumonia.

Doctors normally prescribe Abilify for elderly patients with dementia when there is a serious risk the person will harm themselves or others. In some cases, the risks are necessary to prevent greater harm. If you or a loved one with dementia have a prescription for Abilify, take it exactly as directed by your doctor.

Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome is a rare, life-threatening reaction to antipsychotic drugs such as Abilify. It is a potential side effect of almost all antipsychotic drugs.

Characteristics of NMS include fever, altered mental status, muscle rigidity and instability of the autonomic nervous system. This system controls unconscious functions such as breathing, heart rate, digestion, urination and sexual arousal.

Tardive Dyskinesia (Uncontrolled Body Movements)

Tardive dyskinesia, another serious side effect of Abilify, is characterized by involuntary muscle movements throughout the body, but mostly in the lower face.

TD is most common among people who take Abilify for months or years, but it can manifest as soon as six weeks after beginning the drug. TD can go away after you stop taking Abilify, but sometimes it becomes a permanent condition.

Abilify and Weight Gain

Studies also link Abilify to weight gain, particularly in children. A 2022 review in Australasian Psychiatry examined 11 studies and found that young people (mean age 18) gained an average of 2.7 kg (6 pounds) while on aripiprazole. Youths who took the drug for longer periods (more than 12 weeks) gained more weight than those who took it for shorter periods. Dosage sizes had no impact on weight gain.

Abilify sometimes causes weight gain in adults. This happens less often than it does in children, and the total weight gain is usually less significant. Studies suggest that aripiprazole is less likely to cause weight gain in adults than most other antipsychotics in use today.

Abilify Withdrawal

Because Abilify affects how your brain works, stopping the drug all at once may lead to withdrawal symptoms. This is more likely when you quit the drug after long-term use or if you are used to taking high doses of the medication.

Abilify withdrawal symptoms include:

Anxiety
Appetite changes
Concentration problems
Confusion
Depression
Diarrhea
Dizziness

Hallucinations
Headache
Joint pain
Panic attacks
Sweating
Vomiting

Experts recommend tapering off Abilify if you want to stop taking it. Always consult your doctor for correct dosages when weaning yourself off of the drug.

Impulse Control Issues from Abilify

In 2014, a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that dopamine receptor agonist drugs such as Abilify were associated with new and worsening impulse control disorders. This research led to a new warning on the drug’s label, mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This warning cautions that the drug may cause serious impulse control problems such as problem gambling, compulsive shopping and binge eating.

A 2022 review of impulse control disorder reports uploaded to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System since December 2020 confirms that this association is still ongoing. About 94% of the impulse control disorder reports examined during the study involved people taking aripiprazole.

Many people who feel their lives were irreparably altered from gambling or uncontrolled impulse spending after taking the drug filed Abilify lawsuits to seek compensation.

Impulse control problems related to Abilify often go away when you stop taking the drug or reduce your dose. If you struggle with impulse control, talk to your doctor about reducing the dose or switching medications. Don’t lower your dosage or stop taking your medication without informing your doctor.

Compulsive Gambling

Problem gambling is the most common impulse control-related side effect of Abilify. The medication may be more likely to cause gambling problems than other related drugs with similar impulse control effects. A 2021 study of Swedish health records found that people taking Abilify were significantly more likely to develop problem gambling behaviors than people taking other dopamine agonists.

Most of those who develop gambling issues while taking Abilify have no prior history of problem gambling. Contact your doctor immediately if you have the urge to gamble more frequently than usual.

Sexual Side Effects of Abilify

Hypersexuality is another manifestation of Abilify’s effects on impulse control. This includes having unprotected sex, compulsive masturbation, having sex with multiple partners, or having sex outside of a committed relationship. Some people engage in sexting or share explicit images of themselves.

FDA data shows that 34% of people affected by antipsychotic-related impulse control disorders display uncharacteristic hypersexual thoughts or behaviors. Like Abilify’s other impulse control side effects, hypersexual behavior usually stops when you stop taking the drug or lower your dose.

Suicidal Thoughts

People who take Abilify have an increased risk of developing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. For those who already experience these issues, Abilify may worsen them. The drugmaker now notes this side effect in the black box warning on the drug’s label.

Monitor yourself for new or worsening suicidal thoughts while taking Abilify. Contact your doctor immediately if you notice them. Don’t stop taking your medication without your doctor’s knowledge.

Aripiprazole Side Effects

Please seek the advice of a medical professional before making health care decisions.

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Abilify side effects and how to avoid them

Abilify treats conditions like depression, schizophrenia, and Tourette’s disorder but it has potential side effects, warnings, and drug interactions that you should know about

Abilify is a brand-name prescription drug approved by the FDA to treat schizophrenia, major depressive disorder (in combination with other medications), and, in children, Tourette’s disorder and irritability associated with autistic disorder. Abilify can also be used alone or in combination with lithium or valproate to treat manic episodes in people diagnosed with bipolar I disorder. Abilify is also available as Abilify MyCite (which contains a sensor), or Abilify Maintena (a monthly injection).

The active ingredient in Abilify is aripiprazole, an atypical antipsychotic. The exact way Abilify works is not known, but it is thought to work by acting on dopamine and serotonin receptors in the brain. As with all antipsychotic drugs, Abilify has a number of side effects, warnings, restrictions, and drug interactions that may cause problems, so it helps to understand the downsides before starting this medicine.

RELATED: What is Abilify?

Common side effects of Abilify

The most common side effects of Abilify are:

Headache

Increased appetite/weight gain
Drowsiness/sleepiness/sedation
Agitation
Insomnia
High blood sugar
Anxiety
Stomach problems: nausea, constipation, vomiting
Dizziness/lightheadedness
Muscle and joint pain
Sore throat
Blurred vision
Drooling/excess salivation
Restlessness
Compulsive behaviors
High cholesterol
Dry mouth
Tremor
Urine leakage
Cough
Changes in body temperature
Fever and diarrhea (in children)

In addition to these side effects, approximately 12% of people taking Abilify MyCite in clinical trials experienced skin rashes where the MyCite patch was affixed.

Serious side effects of Abilify

The most serious side effects of Abilify include:

Drug-induced movement problems (extrapyramidal effects) including akathisia, tardive dyskinesia, and dystonia
Suicidal thoughts
Worsening depression
Stroke/mini-stroke
Fainting and falling
Orthostatic hypotension (sudden drop in blood pressure when standing)
Seizures
Diabetes
Severe difficulty swallowing
Body temperature dysregulation
High blood pressure (hypertension)
Heart rate changes
Intestinal obstruction
Gallbladder stones
Swelling of the pancreas (pancreatitis)
Blood problems
Low white blood cell counts
Potassium imbalance
Muscle damage
Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS)
Severe allergic reactions

Patients who experience a serious reaction should notify their doctor or get emergency medical help right away. Severe allergic reactions require immediate emergency medical attention. Symptoms may include hives, difficulty breathing, or swelling around the face, lips, mouth, and tongue.

How long do side effects last?

Aripiprazole has a half-life of 75 hours and its active metabolite, which works like aripiprazole, has a half-life of 94 hours. This means that many of the common side effects of aripiprazole such as headache, drowsiness, agitation, and anxiety, could take several days or even several weeks to resolve after the last dose is taken. Some side effects, such as headache and akathisia, may get better as the body adjusts to the drug.

The metabolic side effects of aripiprazole such as high blood sugar, high fats, high cholesterol, and weight gain may require treatment.

Serious side effects such as extrapyramidal symptoms, severe allergic reactions, stroke, gallbladder stones, pancreatitis, heart rate irregularities, or low white blood cell counts may require emergency medical treatment. Some, like stroke or diabetes, may have lifelong complications. Extrapyramidal symptoms can clear up within a few weeks or they may persist for years and require a medication or dosage change.

Abilify contraindications & warnings

Abuse and dependence

Abilify is not a controlled substance, so healthcare professionals do not consider it an addictive drug. It also does not cause dependence, but may cause withdrawal when stopped abruptly. People taking Abilify should consult with a healthcare professional before stopping this medicine.

Overdose

Taking too much Abilify is serious but probably not lethal. If too much Abilify is taken, seek emergency medical care or call a poison helpline. There are some symptoms that may signal an oral Abilify overdose. These include:

Vomiting
Somnolence
Tremor
Aggression
Heart rate changes
Blood pressure changes
Confusion
Lethargy
Convulsions
Loss of consciousness
Coma

Restrictions

Not everyone can safely take Abilify. The hazards may be too great for some people, but others may be able to take Abilify with careful monitoring for adverse reactions. Restrictions include:

Hypersensitivity: People with allergies to aripiprazole or any of the inactive ingredients of Abilify can never be given this medicine.
Older adults with dementia-related psychosis cannot be given antipsychotic drugs like Abilify because of the increased risk of death.
Children, adolescents, and young adults are at a higher risk for worsening depression and suicide. Patients of any age require careful monitoring by both healthcare professionals and caregivers when taking Abilify.
Cardiovascular disease: Patients with known cardiovascular problems such as heart attack, heart failure, ischemic heart disease, or heart rate problems will require close monitoring when taking Abilify.
Cerebrovascular disease: People with a history of strokes or other cerebrovascular problems will also need careful monitoring.
Diabetes: Antipsychotics, including Abilify, can cause high blood sugar, so regular blood sugar testing is required in people with diabetes or prediabetes.
Low blood pressure, low blood volume, or dehydration: Because Abilify can cause blood pressure problems, any condition that raises the risk of low blood pressure will require monitoring when Abilify is prescribed.
Seizure disorders: Abilify can cause seizures, so people with a history of seizures will be prescribed Abilify with caution.
History of low white blood cell counts: People predisposed to problems with white blood cells will need to have regular blood tests to monitor the effects of Abilify on white blood cells.
Aspiration pneumonia: Abilify can make swallowing difficult, raising the risk that food or drink will be aspirated and possibly cause aspiration pneumonia. People who are at risk for aspiration pneumonia will require close monitoring.

Finally, aripiprazole can throw off the body’s ability to regulate body temperature, resulting in hyperthermia or hypothermia. People taking Abilify then, are vulnerable to extreme environmental temperatures. They should be cautious when temperatures get too hot or too cold, dress appropriately, and even limit going outside when the weather is extreme.

Pregnancy and nursing

Women who are pregnant or considering pregnancy should consult with a healthcare provider about the benefits and risks of taking Abilify while pregnant. There is no evidence that Abilify will harm a fetus, but when atypical antipsychotics are taken during the third trimester, there is a risk that babies will be born with withdrawal symptoms and extrapyramidal side effects (involuntary movement problems).

Women who are breastfeeding should talk to their healthcare provider. Aripiprazole is present in human breast milk and there are reports of reduced milk production in lactating women and poor weight gain in nursing infants.

Children

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Abilify to treat schizophrenia in children as young as 13 years of age, bipolar I disorder in children as young as 10 years of age, and Tourette syndrome or autistic disorder in children as young as 6 years of age. Because of the increased risk for suicide, children and adolescents will need to be closely watched for worsening depression, thoughts of suicide, or suicidal behaviors.

Older adults

People ages 65 and older can take Abilify in the same doses as younger adults, but the starting dose may be lower. However, there is an increased risk for falls and other injuries, so other drugs that cause sleepiness or impairment may need to be adjusted. Healthcare providers are also advised not to use Abilify in seniors with dementia-related psychosis.

Abilify interactions

Like other antipsychotic medications, Abilify has several potentially harmful drug interactions.

Antipsychotic drugs: First-generation and atypical antipsychotics produce many of the same side effects as Abilify. Combining more than one antipsychotic, then, increases the risk and possibly the severity of side effects.
CNS depressants: Abilify reduces symptoms of schizophrenia and mania because it slows down the brain, that is, it is a central nervous system depressant. Many of the side effects such as fatigue, sleepiness, dizziness, and lightheadedness are due to the depressant effects of Abilify. Combining Abilify with other CNS depressants will worsen mental impairment and coordination problems caused by Abilify, and can slow or even stop breathing. These especially include sleeping pills, barbiturates, anxiety medications, opioid pain relievers, muscle relaxants, benzodiazepines, and alcohol, among others.
Drugs that increase the side effects of aripiprazole: Some drugs block the ability of the liver to break down aripiprazole and its active metabolite, causing aripiprazole to stay in the bloodstream at higher concentrations for a longer period. The strongest inhibitors of aripiprazole, such as the antidepressants Prozac (fluoxetine) and Paxil (paroxetine), the antifungal drugs ketoconazole or itraconazole, or the heart rhythm drug quinidine may require the Abilify dose to be cut in half.
Drugs that reduce the effectiveness of aripiprazole: Some drugs speed up the body’s metabolism of aripiprazole, such as carbamazepine. These drugs reduce the effectiveness of Abilify, so the Abilify dose may need to be increased.
Blood pressure medications: Abilify can lower blood pressure, so careful blood pressure monitoring is required when it’s combined with blood pressure medications.

How to avoid Abilify side effects

Most people taking antipsychotic medications will experience side effects. Abilify is no exception, though some of the most unpleasant side effects of traditional antipsychotics are less common when taking Abilify. Still, there are many good rules of thumb for avoiding or minimizing side effects when taking Abilify.

1. Tell the healthcare provider about all medical conditions and medications

For any prescription drug, the first line of defense against side effects is to make sure that the prescribing healthcare provider has a complete medical history. For Abilify, the healthcare provider particularly needs to know about:

Diabetes or a family history of high blood sugar
Seizures
High or low blood pressure
Heart problems
Stroke
Low white blood cell counts
Pregnancy or pregnancy plans
Breastfeeding or plans to breastfeed

Side effects can also be due to drug interactions. The best way to avoid drug interactions is to keep a list of all drugs being taken including prescription or over-the-counter drugs as well as dietary supplements and herbal remedies. Always share this list with the prescribing healthcare provider.

2. Keep all appointments

Visits with the prescribing healthcare provider are another important defense against side effects. If there are side effects, keep a list and share it with the healthcare provider at each visit. The healthcare provider may be able to prescribe other drugs to help with certain side effects such as headache, constipation, or tremor—or, change the dose or the medication altogether. Sleeplessness could be solved by changing the timing of each day’s dose. Finally, tests may need to be regularly performed to spot problems before they turn into serious medical problems.

3. Watch for symptoms of potentially serious side effects

Some side effects are or can develop into severe medical conditions. Abilify, unfortunately, has many severe side effects to watch out for, but there are signs and symptoms that signal there may be a serious problem, particularly:

Seizures
Weakness
High fever
Chills
Excessive sweating
Slow, fast, or uneven heartbeat
Extreme hunger or thirst
Increased urination
Unusual urges or compulsions
Severe agitation
Feeling lightheaded or dizzy when standing up
Difficulty swallowing
Uncontrolled muscle movement or shaking
Hives, rash, or swelling
Unusual bruising or bleeding

If any of these problems are noticed while taking Abilify, immediately call a healthcare professional for medical advice or seek emergency medical attention when needed.

4. Take Abilify as directed

Take Abilify exactly as instructed. Do not change the doses or stop taking Abilify without getting the medical advice of the prescribing healthcare provider.

5. Do not miss doses

Abilify doses need to be taken daily to provide maximum therapeutic benefits. If a dose is missed, take it as soon as it’s remembered. If it’s almost time for the next dose, however, skip the missed dose and take the next dose on time. Do not double up on doses. If missing doses becomes a problem, a pharmacist can provide useful tools to help remember doses such as alarms, pillboxes, smartphone apps, and even pill bottle caps that have alarms. Or, you may want to talk to your doctor about other forms of Abilify such as Abilify MyCite or Abilify Maintena.

6. Don’t drink alcohol

As a drug that slows down the brain, Abilify doesn’t mix well with alcohol. The combination will worsen mental impairment and increase the risk of falling and accidents. It can also decrease blood pressure and cause breathing to slow or even stop.

7. Be careful about driving and other risky activities

Abilify can cause sleepiness, blurred vision, and mental impairment. Use good judgment about driving or engaging in risky activities. Do not drive until you know how Abilify affects you. You shouldn’t drive if you experience side effects such as blurred vision.

Resources

Abilify, Epocrates
Abilify MyCite prescribing information, U.S. National Library of Medicine
Abilify prescribing information, U.S. National Library of Medicine
Aripiprazole drug summary, Prescriber’s Digital Reference
Aripiprazole (Abilify), National Alliance on Mental Illness
Aripiprazole withdrawal: A case report, Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience

Missed Opportunity Syndrome: How to stop regretting the past

Alas, regrets often take away too much of our vitality, which we could successfully spend on something else. Meanwhile, experts have found out that every time we regret the past, we slow down our forward movement, which, obviously, does not benefit us at all, which means it's time to stop looking back.

Nothing is impossible

The first and, perhaps, the most important rule is to understand that you not only had opportunities, but also have them, and most importantly, there will be more, most likely in unlimited quantities, the fact is that life provides them to us indefinitely, while we ourselves are only required to make the right decision. How to distinguish the right decision from the wrong one? Pretty simple. Psychologists use the term “correct” when it comes to their own desires and interests, because they should always be a priority for well-being. That is, choosing any path and making decisions, you either infringe on your needs, or, on the contrary, prefer them, which means that in the second case there is absolutely nothing to regret. However, many of us are brought up in such a way that we are almost always forced to choose not ourselves. But this is not a disaster either.

Try to convince yourself that missing an opportunity does not mean dooming yourself to eternal torture. This is just a case that you ignored here and now, and tomorrow will probably turn up a completely different one, and no one said that it should be worse than the previous one. So one possibility is always followed by another possibility - this is the most important thing you have to understand. Moreover, we have a lot of them and in each specific period of time we must make a choice - which one to use. Therefore, the rejection of one in favor of the other is as natural as it is inevitable.

Control your thinking - control your choices

Often our main problem is that we do not know how to control our attention and our thinking. While we regret the past, a huge number of happy occasions turn up in the present, which we ignore, because we are too passionate about the past, which means that it no longer exists, that is, we run the risk of falling into a real vicious circle, from which it will be very difficult to get out. The advice is simple: pay attention to your present, look around. Perhaps here and now what you could have dreamed of is happening, because if we cannot change the past, then today is completely and absolutely in our power.

Do not be afraid to make a mistake, alas, our intuition is not so developed as to be able to calculate the possible consequences of a decision made in the past, so cast panic thoughts away. All the same, you will have to choose some path and you need to come to terms with the fact that it is quite possible that it will turn out to be false. But, as you know, to live without making mistakes at all is a luxury inaccessible to us. If now you are unhappy with the decision you once made, think about how it would turn out for you: it is quite possible that there would be even more regrets.

A look into the present

Do not look into the past, after all, no one has invented a time machine yet, so it's time to wake up in the present and clearly formulate your goals and objectives. It would seem that planning is a bad helper in the fight against the past, but in fact, drawing up a list of plans for the future can defeat even the most difficult past, which deserves only all sorts of regrets. And, if you have not done this yet, then answer the question for yourself - do you want to live and act in the present, are you afraid of it? It's more difficult, isn't it, to decide on something right here and now and start acting? It is much easier to enthusiastically look at pictures of the past, being in the firm belief that nothing good will happen now.

Before making a choice, clearly define your motivation: why do you do this or that act. Concentrate on the available material: pay attention, perhaps the opportunity is very close to you. Make a balanced and thoughtful decision, and then you will definitely not have to regret anything in the future. Now you have a unique opportunity to make a choice - which opportunities you will miss and which ones you will take advantage of.

Practice

In addition to advice, it is necessary to move on to effective practice - after all, self-persuasion plays an important role in our life. Try to change the way you think consciously. For example, you can go to the mirror, take a close look at your reflection and say: “I stop regretting what I don’t have now, and begin to rejoice at what I already have now, in my present!”.

For clarity, if the wrong decision does not leave you alone, you can make a list of the pluses and benefits that you received by making the "wrong" choice. Surprisingly, often the most beautiful events in our lives occur precisely because of the so-called mistakes.

However, if it is not at all possible to cope with the ghosts of the past, try to apply the most ordinary practice - physical exercises, fatigue, the body, as you know, frees you from unnecessary thoughts.

Photo: Getty iamges

Sasha Barinova

Missed Opportunities - Human Psychology

- they didn’t do what they should have done at all, in their opinion, they regret that they made the wrong choice, from their point of view, in this or that situation. Some of them even become depressed because of this, being absolutely convinced that all the best that they could have done is in the past and that nothing can be returned or changed. This problem is so vast and so closely related to many other psychological problems that I decided to write a comprehensive article on this topic that can help people cope with this absurd problem, from my point of view. On the face of it, it's really terrible to miss opportunities, but not catastrophic, and even necessary, missing opportunities is an integral part of our life. Yes, friends, there is also a benefit in missed opportunities, and not a small one, so read this article to the end and you will understand what I mean.

To begin with, let me convince you that you have always had, have and will have opportunities, life constantly provides them to us, because it expects the right decisions from us. The right decisions are those decisions, by making which we make ourselves better, better, stronger. And they are correct because they meet our personal interests and the interests of the one who invented this world, in which everything is aimed at development and improvement. Our life is arranged in such a way that everything in it either develops or degrades, and this, of course, also applies to a person. We either grow as a person, or slowly but surely degrade. And I believe that life is given to us so that we develop, because everything in this world develops and strives for something common for all of us. Therefore, everything that happens in our life is aimed at making us better. After all, everything must have a meaning, correctly, aimlessly in this world nothing exists and does not happen, everything performs some kind of its function, for some common goal. So, to miss opportunities does not mean to miss them completely, irrevocably, it means to miss specific opportunities in a specific period of time. And as soon as you miss one opportunity, you immediately have a new, even better, larger, more promising, more interesting opportunity that you can either take advantage of, or, as in the case of the previous opportunity, miss it, ignore it. . So one possibility is always followed by another possibility - that's the most important thing you have to understand. Moreover, we have many opportunities and in each specific period of time we must make a choice - which one to use. Therefore, the fact that we miss some of our opportunities is natural and inevitable. We cannot do everything we want to do, we cannot take all the roads at once, we must choose one of them. In each specific situation, we must make a choice between different solutions. Therefore, if you missed some opportunities, then it turns out that at the same time you took advantage of other opportunities - you made a choice and decided what is best for you to do in this or that situation. And since you have decided the way you have decided, why should you condemn yourself for this decision? Do you think it is wrong? I don't think so.

The whole problem of a person, because of which he torments himself, is that he does not know how to control his attention and his thinking. Now, if he gets stuck somewhere there - in the past, where, as it seems to him, he should have made another - the right decision, and not the decision he made, that's how he sticks out there in this past. And in the present, at this moment, there may be a lot of new, even more interesting and grandiose opportunities - use it, as they say, I don’t want to. It is good, of course, when there are people nearby who can point out these opportunities to a person, switching his attention from the past to the present, from what should have been done in the past to what can be done in the present. Therefore, many people turn to the same psychologists, intuitively feeling that they can help them in this case. Psychologists, of course, can help, help a person stop reproaching himself for missed opportunities and for mistakes made in the past, but a person himself must be able to help himself in such situations so as not to poison his own life by senseless digging in the dead past. To think about what is not means not to understand what you have. And we all have - the present, in which we can, if not all, then a lot, but in the past - we definitely can’t change anything. Usually people, although not all, but many, are firmly convinced that if they had acted in this way in the past, and not otherwise, everything would have been different for them, everything would have been better than it is. So friends, you can be very wrong about this. You and I are not so smart as to be able to calculate all the consequences of our actions, taking into account the multiple factors that affect our destiny. Even supercomputers have not yet learned this, although they think they are faster than us. It is quite possible that if you had acted in the past, as it seems to you, more correctly, you would not have made those mistakes because of which you are now experiencing, then you would not be here at all now. What makes you think that by making a certain mistake in the past or missing some opportunity, you did not avoid even more serious mistakes and did not deprive yourself of new, better opportunities? Where do you get such confidence that your actions in the past were wrong? You just think so, right? But you don't know exactly, you can't know exactly what would have happened if you hadn't acted the way you did when you think you missed a great opportunity.

We do not need to be so self-confident in such a complex issue as the question of our possible fate, we cannot know everything in principle, and therefore we cannot assure ourselves of the correctness of some and the incorrectness of our other decisions made by us in the past. it does not follow. In addition, what is done is done, and thanks to everything done in the past, we exist here and now in the present, and at the same time we condemn this past, in fact, thereby devaluing our present. Why do we need it? We do not need to do this, all we need is to think about what each of us has here and now. And in the present, each of us, without exception, has a lot of opportunities, you and I can even choose which ones to use and which ones to ignore, that is, which ones to miss. You, as I said, have done this in the past when you missed your opportunities, you made a choice between what you should do and what you should not do - you understand that? You missed some opportunities, but took advantage of others, maybe less profitable, or maybe not. After all, as I have already said, we do not know and cannot know exactly where another decision that we could have taken in the past could have led us, perhaps it would have ruined us. Therefore, here and now, in our present, you and I must carefully look at the opportunities we have in order to choose the most suitable opportunity for us and take advantage of it. Why must something better be in the past, why not in the present, why not here and now?

So there is no need to regret anything, how can you regret what led you to new opportunities in the present? Somehow this is unreasonable in my opinion. What about yours? I am absolutely sure that at the present moment in your life there is everything necessary so that you can change it in the direction you need. And this is all thanks to those actions, those mistakes that you made in the past. I think that in order for you to finally decide on your attitude to your actions in the past and to the decisions that you made in it, you need to realize all the prospects that you have today. You can do it yourself, you can do it with the help of others, preferably not stupid people who will point out to you what you yourself do not notice. After all, from the outside, people can better see who you are and what you are. But that each of you has promising opportunities, using which you can get everything that you really need, which will make you happy, I personally am absolutely sure, even without knowing anything about yourself and your life. Well, there can be no hopeless people who, no matter what position they are in at the moment, nothing shines anymore, according to the laws of our universe, this cannot be. I will not prove this to you now, because most of you are not interested in this evidence anyway, you are more interested in making your life better and getting rid of your deepest regrets because of the opportunities you allegedly missed. This is what I know for sure. Am I right?

Now, what opportunities do you have at the moment - do you know about it? Do you think about it? You are reading this article and looking for answers to your questions in it, you want to know what is happening to you and what you can do to change the existing reality. You want to change your life, but you don't know how to change it, but at the same time you are already taking advantage of the opportunities that you have here and now, because you are not inactive. But if your life were different and you didn’t miss those opportunities that you regret, would you read these lines now, would you think about what you need to do today, now, to make your life better? We don't know this, do we? But right now, at this very moment, you can choose for yourself the path along which you will go further. As I have already said, the opportunities in the present have appeared for you and me due to missed opportunities in the past, or rather, thanks to the choice that we made in the past when we decided to miss some opportunities, but take advantage of others. And now each of us faces exactly the same choice - where to go now. And we cannot fail to do it, because life does not stand still - it requires decisions from us, decisions on how to act now, and not how one could act sometime in the past. There should be no subjunctive moods in our explanation of your current choice if you want to do the right thing now - do not think about how you did before, your attention and your thinking should not be in the past, otherwise today you will do something wrong again or do something.

Think about what you want and how you can get it, go back to the present and live in it, because the most important thing in your life happens in the present. And, if you have not done this yet, then answer the question for yourself - do you want to live and act in the present, are you afraid of it? It's more difficult, isn't it, to decide on something right here and now and start acting? It is much easier to poke around in the past and justify all your failures, if any, or simply do nothing, assuring yourself that nothing significant can be done anymore. The past does not scare us as much as the present, in which we have to do something in order to get something or change something, and the future, which will be the result of our actions in the present, also scares us. You will need to think about this before you give up your regrets about missed opportunities, which, on the one hand, cause you discomfort, and on the other hand, make your life a little easier. Perhaps you will say that you do not see any real opportunities in front of you now, contrary to my assertion that they are. So after all, this is what we are talking about, friends, that our choice is not obvious, you have not seen much before and did not understand much, therefore you acted as you did in the end. Therefore, I am talking about the need for you to focus your attention on the present you have, so that you see and understand what opportunities you now have and make a decision to use them.

Again, the problem of missed opportunities is mainly that our mind and our thinking get stuck in some particular period of time, around some situation that we would like to replay, correct. And here we are circling and circling around this situation, around this dead period of time, not paying attention to the reality surrounding us and the possibilities available in it. We live in an imaginary world when we think about the past, and do not pay attention to the real world - in the present. Probably, if we knew how to control our attention and our thinking, we would not have any psychological problems. And so, we either somehow get out of the situation in which our thinking is stuck, or we turn to psychologists for help to help us do it more correctly and much faster. One must somehow get out of the unreal world into the real one. In the end, without the right decisions in the present, we will not change anything in our lives, so do not regret anything, but you will have to come to terms with what is. We will have to solve the tasks facing us today in order to change the existing reality, and no mistakes we have made in the past can justify our inaction here and now. Often people ponder and discuss the possibility of correcting the mistakes they have made in the past when they are trying to rid themselves of the thoughts of missed opportunities that gnaw at them. But I am absolutely sure that there is no need to correct anything, you need to be able to correctly navigate the present, in which each of us is due, as I said, to the mistakes made in the past. And again, I return to the thought I have already announced above - do you really want to change something in your past? Are your mistakes in the past an excuse for your unwillingness to act in the right way for you in the present? Why is it that nothing can be done now, because nothing can be done, or because there is no desire to do anything? I will not leave you with this question, because I know how the human mind works, I understand that regretting what I did not do is easier than actually doing something. And you must understand this too.

If you dream of returning to the past in order to change something in it, to apologize to someone in some way, to forgive someone for something, to be in time for something somewhere and what to dare, then be sure - your mind deceives you. Through this maneuver, your mind is trying to switch your attention from what you can do in the present to what you will definitely never be able to do in the past. He, your mind, does not want to work on tasks here and now, he wants to dream about what will never be, for him this is an easier task. I am already explaining to you the reason why our thinking gets stuck in certain periods of time, around certain situations. Keep in mind that our body is set up for quite practical energy efficient work, and our brain is no exception - it does not like to work in vain, it does not like to work at all, because it often does not see the point in it. Our brain spends a lot of energy when we really think, think a lot, think qualitatively, so this is an impractical activity for it, it does not want to spend energy to solve certain problems. So he deceives us, by concentrating our attention on such tasks that can no longer be solved, and therefore it is not necessary to do this. Our brain imitates work when it sends us back in time and points us to our mistakes made in it, instead of actually working in the present on everything that we have and can work with. But even if we could change our past, it is not at all a fact that our changes would lead us to a better present, it is quite possible that we would only make things worse for ourselves and others. So there is no need to return to the past, even if tomorrow a time machine is invented for this purpose, you need to work in the present with the present, forcing your mind to return to it.

So what kind of friends do we have - problems with the present? Just do not say that it is not what you should have been. You don't know what it should have been like for you, you don't even know what it could have been like for you if... If what? If you had acted differently then, if you had made a different decision? Don't fool yourself - you can't know which of your actions were absolutely right and which were not. You just want, if you regret something, that it is your present, you had a different one. But what other friends, what should be your present, what should be the past and what should be the future? Why should it be different, and not as it is, why should your life meet all your expectations and patterns, why should it meet them? Do you really think that when everything in a person's life develops the way he wants, then he is absolutely happy? Our whole life is one big mystery, because we don’t even really understand for what purpose we live, for what we follow our natural instincts, eat, multiply, strive for something. And it is in this mystery that our interest in life is hidden, it is the unpredictability of each subsequent moment in our life that forces us to appreciate, love and cherish our life. Therefore, you will never be able to fully know how right or wrong your choice turned out to be in this or that situation, even if you achieve great success in worldly affairs. Everything has its price, and therefore, having received one thing from life, you will definitely miss something else, you and I cannot hold absolutely everything in our hands, because we don’t need it - to have everything. We take one thing from life and do not take another from it, and in the same way we give something to it in return and do not give something back. We choose, consciously or unconsciously, what we take from life and what we give to it. And we don’t need everything in the world, even the best, otherwise life will become uninteresting to us.

So you need to find the strength in yourself to work with the present, in order to get rid of feelings due to missed opportunities in the past. Now you also have opportunities and there are quite a lot of them - see them and use them. And if you have problems with this, seek help from specialists, they will help you believe in yourself and show you the reality that you do not notice and that you are afraid of. The lack of faith in oneself, with the help of which a person is able to change his life at any time he wants, makes him regret the missed opportunities. Regret is a manifestation of our weakness. Man thus hides his fear from himself in an ephemeral past that is alive only in his memories. So, friends, think about it, maybe your missed opportunities that you are worried about are just your excuse for your unwillingness to change your present, because of fear and because of a lack of faith in yourself? And your laziness feeds on this fear, it keeps you in that zone of discomfort in which you are more comfortable than the real reality, which requires you to make decisions right here and now? Your brain, as I said, is lazy, it does not want to solve real problems, it likes to indulge in not very tiring thoughts about how it could be if you did it this way and not otherwise. Reflection should help you, friends, deal with your negative feelings. Pay attention to the meaning of your experience, not why you regret the past, but why you regret it. Ask this question to your mind, let your brain work on this question, let it give you an answer - why do you need a dead past when you have a living reality in the present that can and should be changed. Find the reason for your laziness and your fears in your misunderstanding of yourself. Do not be afraid of reality - it will submit to you as soon as you start working on it, and not on the dead past.

As true friends, you can choose which opportunities you will miss and which you will take advantage of. You always have this choice, as I said above. Don't tell yourself that you can't do this and that just because you don't have the time, money, energy, motivation, spirit, self-confidence, necessary knowledge. You always have something missing, am I not right? And when will you have all this? So that in abundance, so that there is enough for all your grandiose plans? Never - and you and I understand this. Everything you need, you already have, and everything else is a deception of the mind that slips and does not want to work, we already know this. That's what you need to work with friends - with your laziness, if you do not want to regret the opportunities you missed. And laziness feeds on your fear, which in turn feeds on your ignorance. You need to know more about yourself and the world so that you can always make the right decisions at the right time. I help you with this with my articles. So, you have not missed anything and are not missing anything, I repeat this to you again. You are just doing something and not doing something here and now. You do - the choice of what you do and what not to do. This choice is made either by your consciousness or your lazy brain, when your mind, that is, your ability to think, either works with the present, or swarms in the past, or walks in the future. Of course, you need to think about everything, both about the past and about the present and about the future, in order to make the right choice at one time or another, but priority should be given to the present, because you can only do something in the present. Other people can also make choices for you, who, as you yourself understand, if they make decisions for you, they can make them not in your favor. Which option suits you personally? I am sure that as a reasonable and proud being, having its own “I”, you would like to decide for yourself what and why you need to do. Well, decide, make your conscious choice - what opportunities you have you should use right here and now. People need to deal with their problems with the present, not with the past, but in order to get rid of unconstructive thoughts about the past, it sometimes needs to be thoroughly analyzed in order to fully understand it. The past must be left in the past, breaking away from it by realizing the regularity and necessity of everything that happened in the past. We must understand that here and now we have many times more opportunities than those that we think we missed in our past.

And we can come to this understanding, you, dear readers, can come to this understanding, perhaps with the help of strangers, if you yourself are not able to deal with all your thoughts and feelings, and perhaps on your own, but most importantly, what you can. But do you want this, that's another question, the answer to which will depend on your worldview and your desires. After all, each person has his own vision of this world and his place in it. If your present suits you, then it will be difficult to convince you of the need to change it. But then what's the point of worrying about the past? Again, as you can see, an interesting question arises - think about it. In general, no matter what anyone says, and no matter what we think of ourselves, but personally I am absolutely sure that in every second of our life, we can make a choice that will lead us to the future about which we dream. In our present it is real, but our past is dead, it no longer exists. And to regret it and those opportunities that we seem to have missed, this means not understanding that the present is more important than the past, even though it follows from it. As long as you think about what you did wrong in the past, and what you didn’t do at all, and what you didn’t have time to do, you won’t do what you can do right here and now. And this will lead you to the fact that in the future you will again regret your past, that is, the present present.

And why do you need it, friends, don't you really want to do something significant right now, that you have to constantly tinker with what is no longer there? Do not underestimate yourself - make the right choice here and now, so as not to regret anything later. After all, if someone else makes this choice for you, then you will definitely regret it, because in your life it is you who must make the choice in order to live your life yourself, and not make it someone else's shadow. I hope now you understand that you have never missed any opportunities, that it is all about your choice that you make and on the basis of which you perform certain actions. And these actions of yours lead you to certain results. Therefore, your future and your attitude to the past will depend on what choice you make right here and now and what actions on your part will follow. I hope that this choice will be wise, and you will not have to look for your happiness where it does not exist - in your past, because this happiness is inside you.

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