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If youre apprehensive about the future, give yourself time to adapt to a life without Anxiety. If you have experienced massive stressful changes, and have developed Anxiety as a result, its no wonder that you dont want there to be any more change. I must stay within my comfort zone to keep safe – I can create my own safe zone wherever I am. My feeling is, if this is what Ive had, now I know how to deal with it – its simply a reaction to some stress, its not a physical illness. Problem solving Of course there are other ways of making decisions, all that matters is to find one that works for you and stops you getting bogged down in anxious thoughts. On the other hand, you may be worried about what will hap if you do give them up – will you have nasty withdrawal symptoms; what if your Anxiety resurfaces once the medication is taken away? Every time you talk your problems through with a sympathetic friend or family member you are helping yourself. If the answers are that you were doing something you disliked, and you werent especially happy or fulfilled, then clearly youll have no desire to return to that life. See Extra Information 3 for more on this. Id be able to get back to work. Dont include anything negative. What if I pass out? What if there are germs on my hands? What if my helper abandons me? The critic Being able to criticise yourself is a useful skill and helps you improve your performance. Allow plenty of time for it. the thoughts are produced by their Anxiety – then the method described below can be used to test this out with the aim of easing them gradually back behind the wheel. Dont, whatever you do, belittle your achievements. Treating yourself as an invalid (e.g. avoiding any exertion in case it brings on a heart attack). Communicating if your negative emotions are focused on someone around you, it is possible to communicate this to them. Theyll give exposure treatment to this bully you see. If you dont like the idea of listening to a strange voice, then you can record your own voice, or ask a trusted person to record it for you. If youve been faithfully doing relaxation at least once a day, youll now find that your mind and body will be conditioned to relax when you hear the words on the recording.

You can: Play the recording through a headset while youre doing exposure. Never think that you are going through this alone. Each time you make a note of your thoughts also mention the situation and the intensity of any feelings you had, both physical and emotional. I missed all the family get togethers that were always in the summer. Make a note if you take a long time to get to sleep, if you wake up frequently during the night, if you wake up in the early hours and cant get back to sleep. This could be a relationship or a job that makes demands or imposes structures that they just cant cope with. Typical thoughts are: I cut down my checking yesterday morning, but I was as bad as ever in the afternoon. Lots of people recover from Anxiety, but Ill be the exception. Magnifying and minimising This kind of selective attention makes bad things big and good things small, so its really a combination of filtering and discounting the positive. Rather like putting Anxiety on trial, this is a way of shining a light onto it and understanding how it works. They will. Your head tells you it is wrong, but you continue to act as if it were true because of the emotional hold it has on you. The way you eat is also important. You may have been able to use that knowledge, and the techniques we describe, to start on the road to a life free from Anxiety (no one will ever be entirely free from normal anxiety). A core belief around perfection might be I must be perfect which turns into I must be perfect or Ill be punished or its my responsibility to make myself perfect. Responsibility produces I have to stop bad things haping and if I dont stop bad things haping I deserve to be punished. Go away for a weekend. I tried visualising myself playing the tape and being calm, but for once this didnt work for me. Of course its true that many people alive today do not have the luxury of worrying about their self-esteem, or their core beliefs, because they are entirely focused on survival – enough to eat, a future for their children. Read a book or your favourite magazine. Emotional reasoning can also be a barrier to good decision making. If I didnt already have these things in place, I wouldnt be motivated to do them when Im feeling anxious. As usual its best to aim to do this gradually, in small manageable steps.