3 examples of how to be more cunning than your brain is prone to anxiety to treat anxiety in real life! I find myself using my own advice almost constantly
I have written a lot about how I am prone to anxiety by nature. Because of this, I find myself using my own advice almost constantly. Sometimes people find it difficult to make the mental leap from understanding the general principles of cognitive psychology to the messy reality of using cognitive strategies in their own life. Therefore, I wanted to give some specific examples of how I do it, so I can see how you can do it too.
These are just some of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strategies that I have used in my daily life last week. The first example I will give is low, and the other two are more significant.
1. For a complex task, first do the least intimidating steps.
Cognitive-behavioral principle: Doing new things often causes anxiety. You can do the things that you feel most intimidated with if you break down your task in all its steps and start with whatever you do not feel overwhelmed.
Real life example: for years, I've tried making cashew cheese. The recipe I plan to use has several steps that require several days. To make this recipe less intimidating, I broke down all the steps of the task. There were some with whom I did not feel intimidated, so I started with the following:
1. I made a behavioral commitment to start buying a special ingredient I needed from Amazon.
2. I have some jars clean and ready to use.
3. I got some gauze from the dollar store.
4. I added the other ingredients I needed to my shopping list.
How you can use this strategy: try to make a list of tasks separately for each project you want to undertake, instead of using a list of daily tasks. Include all the steps involved in your task on your list, even the smallest ones. Then start with the simple steps. You do not need to start with the most obvious first steps. The more steps you complete, the more your confidence grows. By the time you have taken some steps to your credit, the other steps will feel less discouraging. This is a strategy that I use very frequently. I could easily have given many other examples only as of this week.
2. Find the reassuring and solid self-talk that works for you.
Cognitive-behavioral principle: when you know your typical anxiety patterns, you can develop self-discourse responses to the anxiety thoughts that you can trigger when necessary.
Real life example: I have a health problem that causes pain and recently burst. This condition can be caused by several very serious underlying conditions, or it can have "no known cause", which is what I have.
I heard my wife tell our friend that he was not well. The problem was that I heard my wife say that there is a small possibility that my condition has a serious underlying cause, and my doctors omitted it. As you can imagine, listening to this caused my anxiety to increase, and I also felt quite irritated.
How I managed to remind myself that I do not have to let what another person says to me. I trust the medical opinion I have received, and I know that my spouse is prone to health anxiety, which is sometimes projected onto me. I reminded myself that, of course, there is always the possibility that something is lost when it comes to medical diagnoses, but that is a very small possibility. The most likely scenario is that the diagnosis they gave me is accurate. The specific self-talk I used in this case was: "Nothing has changed, everything is really exactly the same as a few minutes ago when I felt perfectly calm".
I chose to forgive my spouse for saying something I did not appreciate, because it was the most useful thing I could do in this case.
How you can use this strategy: Finding the inner conversation that helps you calm down is part of science and part of the art.
Experiment and observe how you are doing. I have written here about how you can cope when a member of your family presses one of your emotional buttons.
In my example, I used at least four different cognitive-behavioral skills: assessing reality, facing uncertainty, acceptance and forgiveness.
For situations that provoke anxiety in difficult situations, you will usually need to combine various psychological skills, as I did here.
3. Do not stress because of problems that have not yet happened.
Cognitive-behavioral principle: sometimes you know that there is a potential problem on the horizon. I could stress about it, or I could wait and see if the problem really happens.
Real life example: this is another case where I could give numerous examples just this week.
Here's one.
I recently purchased an investment property in a foreclosure auction, and I am hoping that the current occupant will vacate the property before we can begin our repairs. Actually, we can not begin repairs until we get the building permits, so it will take a while anyway. There is no reason to stress when the occupant will leave, unless a situation arises where the occupant does not leave, and we are ready to begin repairs. That has not happened yet. I could waste emotional energy worrying about that, or I could let the situation unfold and face any problem if I have one. I have a team involved in this project, so to intervene at this point would micromanage my team.
How you can use this strategy:
When you anticipate a possible problem, you should ask yourself if there is anything you need to do to preemptively prevent the problem from occurring. If you conclude that it is logically best to wait, do that. You can trust yourself that if a real problem occurs, you will have the skills to cope. This is also a scenario in which you will want to remind yourself that there are many possible outcomes that lie between "everything goes smoothly" and "complete disaster".
Remind yourself that you can face any situation, if it turns out that you need it.