Reddit mentions of Yoga and Western Psychology

First, realize that your condition is normal for any "self-aware human being". We all go through these phases. The following is based on my attempts to cope with this condition. It is a ongoing process.

The key is to understand that you have to change the mental conditioning that has led you to this stage. The mental conditioning is the sum total of experiences in the various environments that you have been in since birth.

Change your immediate social environment and the change in internal perception will follow. Next, try and change your response to environmental stimulus from the pre-learnt ones. I recently read an article which beautifully explained the relationship between external stimulus and our response to it in a given environmental context (think Pavlov's dog). The gist is that, when we encounter a new stimulus in a given environmental context our initial response is based on our reading of the context, our past experiences and inferences from those. When next we again encounter the same stimulus in the same context we often choose to use the same response. Over time pathways are laid in the brain and the tuple {environmental context, stimulus, response} becomes a conditioning. Now guess what? By just putting you in the same environmental context your brain automatically jumps to the associated response even without the stimulus. Next realize that with the power of imagination we can recreate the environmental context without being physically in it. Thus i am responding in a known way to a stimulus without the context being actually present! The same also happens to be the case when the stimulus is absent but the context is recreated! Subconsciously we pick up on the context and the preset response is triggered (bodily changes) before we notice the absence of stimulus and control ourselves. Hence the great importance of controlling thought patterns.

Start by avoiding those social situations which you know are dragging you down. Learn to be comfortable in your own company i.e. cultivate healthy solitude. Exercise and maintain health so that the body helps you to control the mind. Slow down everything so that you have a chance to regulate your perception of an event and thus modulate the response. Use imagination to play out scenarios of successful response to situations before you encounter them. This is a well-proven technique. "Faking it" is a learning mechanism, not the end goal. Thus for example if you are always walking slouched and downcast, by consciously throwing out your chest, chin up, looking people in the eyes and walking straight you are breaking the previous conditioning and reinforcing a new positive one. By imagining (i.e. currently non-existent) and asserting confidence in a subject of choice, you are building up a new neural pathway so that as you progress the real confidence substitutes the scaffolding.

Here are some books which i found useful;

1. Science of Happiness: How our brains make us happy and what we can do to get happier - Nice overall view. Backed by science and not a pep talk.
   
   
2. The Body has a Mind of its Own - The synergy between mind and body.
   
   
3. Yoga and Western Psychology - Ignore the cover (some idiot's idea of appeal). The authoress was a practicing psychiatrist who saw parallels between classical Raja Yoga and western psychology (freud, jung, all that good stuff.). This book contains an overview of both and a comparison so the cultural context does not obscure the real substance. Invaluable. Nothing religious. Focuses on how to use the techniques for a better life.
   
   
4. Discouses and Selected Writings of Epictetus - Greek/Roman Stoicism. A very practical way to regulate perception and response.
   
   

You have mistakenly focused on the cultural package something comes wrapped in, instead of focusing on the beneficial essence within.

Please read this book and you will find something really worthwhile: Yoga and Western Psychology, A Comparison