Not to be flippant, but if you want to alter the way you think, then therapy is probably the answer.

The good news is that in my experience, the valuable part of therapy is totally free and you could start today.

I've had success with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The model for CBT says that our automatic thoughts initiate our feelings, and while our feelings are valid, our thoughts can be bullshit.

Our brain is like an overgrown field, and each thought is like a person passing through it. Each time a thought passes through the field, it wears down a groove which will become a trail or a road. Our thoughts want to take the path of least resistance, so they follow the well-worn paths. However, we can create new paths with better thoughts that lead to more positive feelings, and eventually the negative paths have more resistance than the positive ones.

The key technique is recognizing Cognitive Biases, which are common ways that our brains lie to us, and then restructuring our thoughts through journaling exercises. Common biases include assuming other people think poorly of us, making predictions of the future with limited information, or thinking that because we feel bad we must be bad.

Now on the flip side, therapeutic techniques are not a one-size-fits-all solution. What's worked for me might not work for everyone. And that's okay because there's plenty of tools in the toolbox left over.

I got a lot of mileage out of CBT. It's logical, there's a process to follow, and it improved the quality of my life to a point. It didn't happen overnight, and I still have bad times more often than I'd like, but there was improvement

Whether you have access to a therapist or not, the greatest impact from therapy comes from doing the homework. It's lame, but there it is. But if you really don't vibe with a technique, the good news is there's a zillion other techniques you could try a web search away.

My best answer is to get diagnosed and treated for an anxiety disorder because these are not things that have ever popped into my head

From what I picked up, CBT is basically telling a bad thought to stop and moving to a different topic. Like literally tell the idea or your thought precess in your head to fuck off and process something useful until your default thoughts are not constant nuclear war in your head.

Its a million times harder than it sounds at first, but progress snowballs. Eventually you retrain the briains default reaction to chill out instead of contatntally assuming your doom. You figure out how to extinguish a thought chain thats going to end with your brain telling you to neck rope before it goes that deep.

Mediation. The practice focuses, in part, on training you to avoid persistent thoughts and staying present.