Sunday, February 13, 2011

A Fast Approach to Reducing Anxiety, Stress, and Fear

My clients have been using this three-tool approach to reducing stress, anxiety, and fear with reasonable success:

1. Realize that all of us deserve to not be shackled by worry, even if you've made mistakes. We all have.

2.As soon as a worrisome thought enters your consciousness, quickly replace it with a productive activity.

3. If you can't distract yourself, ask yourself, What's the most likely positive outcome?" That'll ease your anxiety. Then, "What's the worst that's likely to happen? How could I cope with that?" You could, couldn't you?

If you try this strategy or a variant thereof, let me know how well it works for you.

5 comments:

Social Anxiety Forum said...

Hi,


These are rally helpful tips for us.

These are few other tips on anxiety.

1.Work towards better overall health
2.Manage your thought flow.
3.Try to connect with others with similar problems.
4.Engage in constructive work.


Thanks

Annie said...

Over the past 5-year period, I've been trying to manage anxiety related to the fear that was certainly about to get fired...any day now. It came from feeling like a fraud in my career and was never lessened by promotion, praise or a salary raise.

A friend told me that anxiety is created by harbouring unfinished thoughts. In my case, I've learned to lessen career related stress by asking "so what?" until I get to the very end of the thought.

It's a version of the worst-case-scenario you describe and forces you to get to the bitter end of the seemingly unbearable thought. Often - it's not so bad or so totally unrealistic, you instantly get over it.

Get to the end of the thought that's causing the stress.

Marty Nemko said...

Annie, sometimes the cure to feeling like a fraud is to accept that perhaps you DON'T have sufficient abilities or skills to be good at the work you're in. Have you sufficiently made efforts to improve your skills? If so, and if God were to look down on you and say, Annie you're not good enough at this, look for other work?" should you?

Shawn said...

Thanks for the post.

I would like to see a post on internet addiction. I have it. It's hard to be disciplined.

Marty Nemko said...

Shawn, I've written widely on discipline, procrastination, motivation, getting unstuck, etc. Simply google those terms and the word Nemko and you'll find plenty.

 

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