KEY FOUR
Anxiety Management
1. Take care of your body
= No caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, sugar, or NutraSweet. Exercise and sleep routines.
2. Deep Breathing. Practice
so it’s a habit (short times all throughout the day): whenever you’re waiting for a minute or two.
3. Shift Awareness to the
here-and-now: sight, smells, touch, taste, and hearing. (“I’m hearing the refrigerator!”) You can practice
shifting back and forth from inside your body (like noticing your breathing) and back to outside.
4. Most worries are not
about real problems (just the past and unknown future) so thank your part and ignore the message. You don’t have to
figure out what’s wrong. Just thank the messenger.
5. Recognize when you’re
angry by answering the question, “If I was angry, what would I be angry about?” Keep answering until you run out
of reasons. Short answers. (Anger and anxiety are closely related.)
6. Have some fun. Laugh. Be
delighted with how screwed up everything is. Make plans to have fun. Go with your impulses: eat ice cream, sit down for 10
minutes and watch people, especially children and dogs. Make fun a serious goal if you’re a workaholic.
7. Turn off the constant flow
of worries magically with an image of noticing and placing each one in a gorgeous container with a lid or something concrete
like making a list, putting the list in a freezer bag, and sticking it behind the ice cube tray in the frig. Focus on a peaceful
scene at bedtime and tell yourself you’re a “good girl” (boy).
8. Constant, racing worry
thoughts can be interrupted with another thought. Be persistent (1000 Xs a day): say “I love plums.”
(diamonds, fishing, kittens, etc.) every time a chronic worry pops up. This is replacing, not attacking, the
worry thought.
9. Face the worry head-on
and worry the right way: Once. Pick a time limit like ten minutes, write down everything that’s upsetting about the
situation, do whatever concrete things you have to do (telephone calls, a “To Do” List) right now. Then put on
a calendar the next appointed time you are going to think about the problem. When the worry comes back just say, “We’ll
talk about this next Friday at 11 a.m.. Thanks for your
concern.” or “We’ve already worried about that. It’s
taken care of.”
10. Plan instead of worrying. You don’t have
to constantly review a plan.
How to Plan:
A.
Concretely identify the problem.
B.
List the problem-solving options
C.
Pick one of the options
D. Write out a plan of action. Make sure the plan is thorough.
(Tell yourself, “We have a completed plan and do not need to go over it anymore. We did a perfect job!”)
From Psychotherapy Networker Sept.-Oct. 2005
