Take control of your anxiety--and start living your life
Feel like your life is spinning out of control? Not sure how to handle what seems like constant change and chaos? You're not alone--the world has taken some pretty crazy turns recently--but if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you're likely suffering far more than you need to. Anxiety is our natural reaction to unfamiliar, stressful, and dangerous situations, but for some of us this reaction can become all-consuming and ultimately debilitating. Anxiety For Dummies has the antidote to this, showing you how to manage feelings of uneasiness, distress, and dread--and take back control of your life.
In a straightforward and friendly style, clinical psychologists Charles H. Elliot and Laura L. Smith show you how to pinpoint your triggers, use proven techniques and therapies, improve health and eating habits, and make other practical changes to your lifestyle that will have you feeling better fast.
* Understand what makes you anxious and learn to let go
* Change your thinking to "right-size" your worry
* Evaluate self-help as an adjunct to professional therapy
* Explore healthy lifestyles and medication options
Including updates to the clinical literature and discussions of the impacts of world events--such as COVID-19--this book has everything you need to manage your worries and put you, not them, in charge of your life.
Autorentext
Charles H. Elliot, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and Professor Emeritus at Fielding Graduate University. Laura L. Smith, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and a Past President of the New Mexico Psychological Association.
Klappentext
- Explore effective ways to manage anxiety
- Understand and challenge your anxious thinking
- Make meaningful life changes
Manage anxietyand start living your life!
If you feel like your life is spinning out of control, you're definitely not alone! While anxiety is a natural reaction to stress, for some of us, it can become all-consumingand ultimately debilitating. Thankfully, there is plenty you can do to combat anxiety with the help of this approachable guide. Inside, find out how adopting proven techniques like pinpointing triggers, improving health and eating habits, and learning to let go can help you effectively and deliberately manage your worriesand take back control of your life.
Inside...
- Recognize symptoms
- Know useful vs. toxic anxiety
- Examine the causes of your anxiety
- Develop the practice of mindful acceptance
- Help your kids with their anxiety
- Block the blues
- Face your fears
- Adopt anxiety-reducing habits
Zusammenfassung
Take control of your anxietyand start living your life
Feel like your life is spinning out of control? Not sure how to handle what seems like constant change and chaos? You're not alonethe world has taken some pretty crazy turns recentlybut if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you're likely suffering far more than you need to. Anxiety is our natural reaction to unfamiliar, stressful, and dangerous situations, but for some of us this reaction can become all-consuming and ultimately debilitating. Anxiety For Dummies has the antidote to this, showing you how to manage feelings of uneasiness, distress, and dreadand take back control of your life.
In a straightforward and friendly style, clinical psychologists Charles H. Elliot and Laura L. Smith show you how to pinpoint your triggers, use proven techniques and therapies, improve health and eating habits, and make other practical changes to your lifestyle that will have you feeling better fast.
- Understand what makes you anxious and learn to let go
- Change your thinking to right-size your worry
- Evaluate self-help as an adjunct to professional therapy
- Explore healthy lifestyles and medication options
Including updates to the clinical literature and discussions of the impacts of world eventssuch as COVID-19this book has everything you need to manage your worries and put you, not them, in charge of your life.
Inhalt
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Detecting and Exposing Anxiety 5
Chapter 1: Analyzing and Attacking Anxiety 7
Anxiety: Everybody's Doing It 8
Tabulating the Costs of Anxiety 9
What does anxiety cost you? 10
The cost to society 10
Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety 11
Thinking anxiously 11
Behaving anxiously 11
Finding anxiety in your body 12
Seeking Help for Your Anxiety 14
Matching symptoms and therapies 14
Finding the right help 16
Chapter 2: Examining What Anxiety is All About 17
Anxiety: Help or Hindrance? 18
What Anxiety Looks Like 20
Worrywarts 20
Avoiding people 22
Beyond everyday anxiety 24
Panic's companion 26
Phobias: Spiders, snakes, airplanes, and other scary things 27
Rare symptoms of anxiety in adults 29
How Anxiety Differs from Other Emotional Disorders 30
Chapter 3: Investigating the Brain and Biology 33
Examining the Anxious Brain 33
How the brain's circuits connect 34
Neurotransmitters 35
Preparing to Fight or Flee 36
Mimicking Anxiety: Drugs, Diet, and Diseases 39
Exploring anxiety-mimicking drugs 39
Ingesting calmness into your diet 41
Investigating medical anxiety imposters 42
Chapter 4: Clearing the Roadblocks to Change 45
Digging Out the Roots of Anxiety 46
It's in my genes! 47
It's how I was raised! 47
It's the world's fault! 48
Finding Self-Acceptance 49
Having Second Thoughts about Change 51
Deciding to Get the Show on the Road 53
Arguing with your arguments 53
Taking baby steps 54
Watching Worries Come and Go 57
Following your fears 57
Writing about your worries 59
Getting Help from Others 60
Seeking the right therapies 60
Seeking the right therapist 61
Part 2: Battling Anxiety 63
Chapter 5: Understanding Feelings 65
What Do You Feel and Why? 66
Feelings are sensational! 67
Feelings tell you what to do 68
Feelings often arise from your thoughts 68
Distinguishing Thoughts from Feelings 69
Blocking the blues 69
Getting in touch with your feelings 70
Getting in touch with your thoughts 73
Looking at the Feeling Cycle in Action 76
Chapter 6: Rethinking Your Thoughts 79
Tackling Your Thoughts 80
Weighing the evidence 81
Rethinking risk 83
Deconstructing worrisome scenarios 85
Cultivating Calm Thinking 91
Considering a friend's perspective 91
Creating calm 92
Watching Out for Worry Words 94
Stacking sticks into bonfires of anxiety 94
Encountering extremist words 95
Misrepresenting with all-or-none, black-or-white words 96
Running into judging words 97
Turning to victim words 98
Refuting and Replacing Your Worry Words 98
Exorcising your extremist words 99
Disputing all-or-none 100
Judging the judge 100
Vanquishing victim words 101
Chapter 7: Busting Up Your Anxious Assumptions 103
Understanding Anxious Assumptions 104
Sizing Up Anxious Assumptions 105
Recognizing anxious assumptions 105
Assessing your anxious assumptions 106