Anxiety, Leave Me Alone Read online

  Anxiety, Leave Me Alone

  Simple Ways To End Anxiety Now

  By Alex Canny

  COPYWRIGHT

  Thе іnfоrmаtіоn рrеѕеntеd іn thіs rероrt sоlеlу аnd fullу rерrеѕеntѕ thе viеws оf thе аuthоr аѕ оf thе dаtе оf рubliсаtiоn. Anу оmiѕѕiоn, оr роtеntiаl Mіѕrерrеѕеntаtіоn оf, аnу реорlеs оr соmраnіеѕ, iѕ еntirеlу unіntеntіоnаl. Aѕ a result оf сhаnging іnfоrmаtіоn, соnditiоns оr соntеxtѕ, thіѕ аuthоr rеsеrvеs thе rіght tо аltеr соntеnt аt thеіr ѕоlе dіѕсrеtіоn imрunitу. Thе rероrt іѕ fоr infоrmаtiоnаl рurроѕеѕ оnlу аnd whіlе еvеrу аttеmрt hаѕ bееn mаdе tо vеrіfу thе іnfоrmаtіоn соntаinеd hеrеin, thе аuthоr, аssumеs nо rеѕроnѕіbіlіtу fоr еrrоrѕ, іnассurасіеѕ, аnd оmіssіоns. Eасh реrsоn hаѕ unіԛuе nееdѕ аnd thіѕ bооk саnnоt tаkе thеѕе іndіvіduаl dіffеrеnсеs іntо ассоunt.

  Thіѕ е-bооk іs соруrіght © 2019 bу thе Author with аll rіghtѕ rеѕеrvеd. It is illеgаl tо сору, diѕtributе, оr сrеаtе dеrіvаtіvе wоrkѕ frоm thіѕ еbооk іn whоlе оr іn раrt. Nо раrt оf thіs report mау bе rерrоduсеd оr trаnsmіttеd іn аnу fоrm whаtѕоеvеr, еlесtrоniс, оr mесhаniсаl, іnсludіng рhоtосоруіng, rесоrdіng, оr bу аnу informational stоrаgе оr rеtriеvаl sуstеm wіthоut еxрrеssеd wrіttеn, dаtеd аnd ѕignеd реrmіѕѕіоn frоm thе author.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Discovering the Origin of Your Anxiety

  Improving Awareness of your Feelings and Emotions

  Developing Thought Awareness

  Observing Your Triggering Thoughts

  The Voice of Anxiety

  Understanding the Nature of Negative Thought Patterns

  Chapter 2

  Relaxation: Why It Is So Important?

  Calm Breathing Exercise

  Relaxing Different Muscle Groups

  The Laughing Cure

  Mindful Jogging

  Chapter 3

  Transforming Intrusive Thoughts

  The Mindful Way

  Chapter 4

  The Action Phase

  Designing Your Fear ladder

  Imagining Your Fear

  Facing Fear Head On

  Closing Comments

  Introduction

  It is possible to manage your anxiety and live life to the fullest. Having anxiety is not a medical condition. Anxiety is just a feeling that is generated from our distorted perception of reality. If we can change our perception, we can change our feeling.

  This book is devoted to transforming your perception of anxiety triggers. It will guide you toward resilience to feelings that bring distress. You’ll learn the cognitive and behavioral strategies to face your fears head-on and conquer them with confidence. You’ll also learn how to make peace with distressing thoughts and take their power away so that they can’t bother you anymore.

  Methods included in this book are very effective. However, each chapter of this book is meant to build on what was covered in the earlier chapters. Therefore make sure not to skip any chapter.

  Chapter 1

  Discovering the Origin of Your Anxiety

  Our journey of overcoming anxiety will start with exploring the origins of the sense of irrational dread. The feeling of anxiety is harmless, although it can make you feel extremely uncomfortable. We all have different anxiety triggers. If you can identify your own anxiety trigger, you can apply the right tool to manage your anxiety.

  Exploring your anxiety triggers can illuminate the origins of your anxiety. Understanding the origin will help you to embrace the symptoms to diminish their power. When you develop self-acceptance, you will stop criticizing yourself for having this emotion, and direct your energy from fighting the feeling, toward doing something productive with your life. Fighting the anxiety or running away from anxiety will only make your anxiety stronger.

  In some cases, finding the origin of your anxiety can be useful to eliminate the root cause of your problem. For instance, if the origin of your anxiety is an abusive relationship, a demanding work environment or financial problems, you can take steps to fix those issues. However, not all sources can be diminished. If anxiety originates from the traumatic memories of the past or if it develops gradually from childhood, there is nothing you can do to eliminate the root cause. In those cases, you have to learn how to make peace with painful memories.

  For many people, finding the actual cause for their anxiety can be difficult, even impossible. If you know the root cause of your anxiety and you also know a solution, then use the solution to break free from the confines of anxiety.

  If you don’t know the origin of your anxiety, there is nothing to worry. Methods we are going to learn in this book will work regardless of your level of knowledge of the origin.

  Improving Awareness of your Feelings and Emotions

  The very first step to managing an emotion is to recognize it. But sometimes identifying an unwanted feeling and emotion can be difficult for some people. There are a few reasons behind it. One of the major reasons is the avoidance tendency.

  As avoidance provides temporary relief, some people develop creative ways to avoid their anxiety. Here are some common avoidance behaviors:

  “Workaholism” in which people always remain engaged in working to avoid unpleasant emotions.

  “Denial and repression” where people either try to resist their emotion or pretend nothing has happened.

  “Sensation seeking” in which people involve sensation-producing activities such as compulsive gambling.

  “Alcoholism and substance abuse” in which, people seek temporary riddance in alcohol and drugs.

  Although avoidance behavior is a temporary fix, a very high level of fear avoidance is a risk factor for long-term anxiety.

  However, if you have an avoidance tendency like most people, you can use it to manage your anxiety symptoms. In this case, you have to find a “distraction” or an activity that is creative and entertaining, to cover up your bad feelings. But you have to make sure not to overdo it.

  Remember, avoiding your anxiety or seeking ways to escape your anxiety is never a permanent solution. If you keep avoiding your own feeling, it may resurface more powerfully and make you feel miserable. That’s why it is important to deal with them head-on.

  Recognize your feelings and emotions and observe them to gain insight into the nature of your condition. When you can identify the emotion and the factors that cause that emotion, you can challenge it.

  However, it is all right if you can’t clearly identify your feeling. Some people are so connected with their mind and emotions that they can notice even the slightest change in the feeling. Others can develop this awareness with practice.

  If you want to develop your awareness of your feeling and emotion, assess your current mood: How do you feel right now? Notice the pace of your breathing. Is your breathing slow and deep or fast and shallow? Notice the posture of your body. Is the position of your body relaxed and comfortable? Do you feel any tightness or heaviness or any other sensations in any part of your body? What feeling can you associate with those sensations? If you are not experiencing any strong sensations and your breath is normal and your body is relaxed, notice what it feels like to be relaxed. If you are having a strong sensation, label this sensation and notice what it feels like having this sensation.

  Notice the emotions you’re experiencing right now. Do you feel nervous, panicked, irritated, angry, sad, insecure, timid, upright, self-conscious, disturbed or uneasy? Think the word that capt
ures the essence of the feeling in your mind. You don’t need to do anything about them. The goal is to identify your feelings and feel more connected with your body and mind. The best method to develop awareness is mindfulness meditation, which we will learn in the upcoming chapters.

  Developing Thought Awareness

  Thoughts and emotions are closely linked— They have a cause-effect relationship. What you think is reflected in your feeling. What you feel is reflected in your thoughts. A feeling is a single emotion. To get a hold of your anxiety, you have to be aware of both of your thoughts and feelings. If you can uncover the thoughts that contribute your anxious feelings, you can re-program your thought patterns and transform your anxiety into calmness.

  Feel your thoughts. Feeling the thoughts does not mean that thoughts can be felt the same way you feel hot and cold. Just as some people are unaware of what they are feeling, others have difficulties knowing what goes in their mind when they are nervous, tensed or anxious. What we feel and what we think are more intimately connected than most of us know.

  Sometimes during the therapy sessions for anxiety, the therapists asks the patient what they are thinking when they feel nervous or tensed. Patients often describe their feelings rather than their thoughts. It’s probably because often during the moments of anxiety, we don’t have a clearly identifiable thought. Here the goal is to discover what the anxiety triggering situation means to you. That will show what your thoughts are.

  Think about a situation that makes you upset. Now, in your mind’s eye, see the whole picture, and find out which part of that event triggers upsetting emotions. Some of us feel anxious even before the anxiety-producing event takes place. Find out which aspects of that particular situation are perceived as stressful in your mind. Is it a thought or image of fear of the anticipated future event?

  Sometimes people with acute anxiety disorder wake up in the middle of the night with intense dread. What could be the trigger in this? We can find the answer through self-inquiry.

  A simple exercise can improve your thought awareness. When you get anxious or worried, take a moment to reflect. Find out what thoughts or images appear in your mind right before the anxious feeling. If you can identify them, then you’ve found the triggers of your anxious feelings.

  Remember, an event itself can’t make you anxious— it is how you perceive that particular event that brings forth the emotion. Your thoughts reflect the meaning the event holds for you.

  Thoughts bring pleasure and pain. Observe the thoughts that crowd your mind when you feel upset, and notice how they activate your anxiety.

  Take time to contemplate on the triggering thoughts and images that bring dreadful feelings. Ask yourself “what part of the event makes me feel anxious?” “What is the worst that could happen?” “If the worst happened what impact it would have had on my life?” “Could this affect people’s view about me? How?” “Did I relate this event with something in the past that bothered me? Take time to get this answers.

  Educate yourself about the nature of your own anxiety. If it doesn’t help you to rise above the anxiety, it will definitely help you to live with it.

  Observing Your Triggering Thoughts

  We all have different patterns of anxiety. The moment you focus on your triggering thoughts, the process of paying attention will bring thought process to light. You will understand your own anxiety pattern and gain a new perspective to adopt the right strategy to manage your anxiety. Monitor your triggering thoughts and feelings any time in any situation.

  Maintain a notebook to keep records of anxious trigger thoughts and feelings. Rate your anxiety level from 1 to 100, where 1 is the state of almost no-anxiety, and 100 is the state of highest anxiety possible.

  Here is an example:

  Anxiety triggers: Today my boss was mad at me because I made a careless error.

  Anxious thoughts: My career is over. I’m such an idiot!

  Feelings and sensations: Fear, guilt, frustration, anger.

  Anxiety rating: 80

  Once you are done writing, look at the thoughts and ask yourself, “does this situation really pose any actual threat or am I blowing thing out of proportion?” If you’re not sure whether your trigger thoughts are rational look for the pieces of evidence to support your thought— find out if the thoughts hold water. If no evidence is found, then there is no need to trust these thoughts. Every time you question a trigger thought, you’ll start taking them less seriously and your anxiety level will shrink.

  Practice this exercise every day. You may not notice any immediate effect in the beginning. But after practicing for a few weeks, you’ll discover that your trigger thoughts are no longer upsetting you.

  The Voice of Anxiety

  During the moments of anxiety, we experience negative chatter. While confronting an anxiety-producing situation, if we engage ourselves in negative self-talk patterns, we may feel trapped into a never-ending cycle of harmful thoughts, which can make our anxiety from bad to infinitely worse.

  Do you become aware of your own negative inner-dialogues when you feel stressed or worried? These automatic negative thoughts keep bubbling up when people experience persistent anxiety. The experiencer feels as if he or she is trapped in a vicious cycle and there is no escape.

  The Human brain produces anywhere between 25,000 and 50,000 thoughts an a day.

  If the mind is trapped in negativity, imagine how many negative thoughts it experiences everyday— thousands upon thousands!

  Negative thoughts activate the release of stress hormones into our system. These hormones speed up our thought, our heartbeats, and various other physiological functions, which make our situation even worse.

  Pay attention to the inner-conversation that goes on in the mind when you feel anxious. These are the voices of anxiety. This is what your anxiety sounds like. These inner-dialogues create illusion and make us believe in it. In his book, David Burns, a clinical psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine said, “People who are anxious and depressed are often masters of illusion. Their pessimistic outlook and some unconscious tricks of the mind can turn triumphs into setbacks, and setbacks into personal feelings.”

  Negative thoughts emerge from the depth of our mind when we are overwhelmed with anxiety. They slip into the brain under the radar of conscious awareness and turns into powerful habitual patterns. They arise automatically before we do anything to stop them. We may not be able to prevent them from occurring, but we can change our perception about the anxiety triggers. When the perception changes, everything changes.

  You have more control over your thoughts than you think you have. If you can detect the words of your anxiety and restructure your anxious thoughts you can liberate yourself from those negative thought patterns.

  Understanding the Nature of Negative Thought Patterns

  Negative thought patterns are not always easy to detect. But if you want to manage the negative emotions of anxiety, you need some understanding of your distorted thought patterns. Once you learn about the thought patterns of anxiety, you can reframe them to be positive in nature and create a better reality. There are ten major thinking patterns or cognitive biases that trigger your anxious feeling:

  Black and White thinking

  When you’re engaged in this thinking pattern, you will believe that you should do a thing perfectly or don’t do at all. You’ll feel an inner demand to be a perfectionist. You will have high expectations of yourself, which may motivate you to work hard to achieve perfection, but at the same time, it will discourage you to try new things because you might not do it perfectly. Black and white thinking make us believe that we are never good enough— which makes us feel inadequate, and generate a feeling of anxiety. When you become aware of a 'black and white' thought, say to yourself, “I am thinking black and white. These thoughts are irrational. This is the voice of anxiety”.

  Overgeneralization

  Overgeneralization is a logical fallacy, which occurs when y
ou use a small even insignificant example to generalize everything. For instance, if you fail to perform well in a small competition, overgeneralization will try to make you believe that you’ll fail in every competition that comes your way. This negative propensity of the mind makes us see any negative situation that occurs as being an unlimited pattern of setbacks and defeat. Overgeneralization is a very common thinking pattern that goes through the minds of anxious people. When you find yourself overgeneralizing, say to yourself, “I’m overgeneralizing. These thoughts are irrational. This is the voice of anxiety”.

  Selective abstraction

  This negative bias occurs when we feel that the negative outweighs the positive in life. When you engage in selective abstraction, you only dwell on the negative aspect of a situation no matter how insignificant it is, and unwittingly overlook all the positive aspects. It's like you’re wearing a pair of glasses designed to filter out all the bright sights and let you see only the negative aspects. This causes unnecessary sufferings.

  Selective abstraction has the potential to turn a negative thought into a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you constantly focus and rehearse on the dark side of something, you’re unwittingly acting to make it more real. As, for example, if a person with social anxiety constantly thinks that they will blush while approaching new people, then that very thought will trigger blushing. When you find yourself engaging in selective abstraction, say to yourself, “Wait a minute! I’m not seeing the whole picture. There must be something good about this situation. I’m not going to let the voice of anxiety put me down!”

  Disqualifying the positive

  Have you heard about the alchemists who dreamt about inventing a method to transmute any base metal into gold? Negative thoughts can make you do the exact opposite— that is turning your golden joy into an emotional lead. This is why psychologist David. D. Burns termed that thought pattern as, “ reverse alchemy”.