Treating Anxiety

Have you ever considered that you just might owe your life to anxiety? Learn how evolution favored those with a healthy amount of anxiety, including your personal ancestors. But yes, you can have too much of a good thing. Explore the boundary between everyday anxiety and the clinically significant anxiety that is experienced by about one-third of the population in their lifetime.

What exactly is anxiety? Discover the numerous relationships between the three elements of anxiety: thoughts, physiological sensations, and behavior. As you’ll see, anxiety can start with any of these three elements and amplify from there. But what if your anxiety didn’t hold you back? Learn the difference between goals and values, and how to create your own personal Challenge List.

Worry that feels uncontrollable and physical tension are the two pillars of a very common anxiety diagnosis called general anxiety disorder. Explore why we all worry from time to time and the difference between worry and general thinking. Most important, you’ll learn about the four cornerstone tools from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that can help you start to decrease your worry load today.

Explore the causes of the physiological symptoms of anxiety from blushing to shortness of breath to trembling hands. And how does potentially helpful anxiety turn into its most extreme form—panic? Learn about the panic cycle, why our avoidance behaviors do more long-term harm than good, and the simple physiological and cognitive tools you can use to make a very real difference today.

Of the three components of anxiety, behavior is the factor we can best control. Participate in an exercise to identify your values and then learn how those values drive your behavior and affect your anxiety. Explore Choice Point, a mental-health tool that can help you assess behaviors. Are your behaviors moving you toward or away from your personal values?

Because we are social animals living our lives in social situations, social anxiety can have a significant affect on our ability to attain our goals. Learn why this type of anxiety is all about our fear that people will find something deficient about us that we would rather hide—our “fatal flaw.” Explore two skills that can help you get around social anxiety and its fears.

Learn about the many different types of obsessions—the uncontrollable, recurring, and distressing thoughts, images, or urges—and the actions people feel they must take in response. Explore the tools of cognitive defusion and acceptance, tools that don’t strive to get rid of the distressing thoughts but can change the relationship with the obsession to allow for a more peaceful life.

Learn about perfectionism—not a diagnosis, but a mindset that drives many different types of anxiety, rooted in never feeling good enough. Explore several tools that can help you change the rigid thinking of perfectionism to a more flexible, peaceful way of existing.

Self-criticism is a normal part of existence. But with anxiety, self-criticism can get in our way. Explore the characteristics of pathological self-criticism and the nine needs it fulfills in us. Nine? No wonder it’s so difficult to let go. But you will discover methods that do work. In this case, put behavior first, and your beliefs will catch up.

Explore the anxiety manifestations of indecision and procrastination, both of which are rooted in avoidance (of uncertainty and negative emotions) and keep us from moving forward in our lives. Discover tools to help you address the uncertainty-causing indecision, and tools to help you manage the emotions you’re avoiding with procrastination.

Medication can be a powerful and effective tool in the treatment of anxiety. But to choose a medication that is right for your body, your life, and your anxiety, you’ll need to become an informed consumer. Learn about anxiety medication from psychiatrist Dr. Christopher Miller of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

A recent study synthesizing more than 50 years of sleep research showed that even short periods of sleep loss resulted in increased anxiety symptoms. Meet Dr. Jade Wu, a board-certified sleep psychologist who answers questions about the complex relationship between sleep and anxiety. You’ll learn about the most common sleep problems, treatments, and more.