The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Anxious and What You Can Do to Change It PDF
Preview The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques: Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Anxious and What You Can Do to Change It
The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques THE 10 BEST-EVER ANXIETY MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES Understanding How Your Brain Makes You Anxious & What You Can Do to Change It MARGARET WEHRENBERG All case studies referred to in this book are composites. No client is meant to reflect any individual person and all circumstances and names are altered to protect identities. Copyright © 2008 by Margaret Wehrenberg All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at [email protected] or 800-233-4830. Book design by Jonathan Lippincott Manufacturing by R.R. Donnelley, Harrisonburg Production Manager: Leeann Graham Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data Wehrenberg, Margaret. The 10 best-ever anxiety management techniques : understanding how your brain makes you anxious and what you can do to change it / Margaret Wehrenberg. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. 219) and index. ISBN 978-0-393-70556-0 (pbk.) 1. Anxiety. 2. Brain. I. Title. BF575.A6W44 2008 152.4'6—dc22 2008008387 ISBN 13: 978-0-393-70556-0 (pbk.) W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110 www.wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells St., London W1T 3QT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 To Shannon Malone Burns and Susan Palo Cherwien, for all the years of sharing in my life, all the love you give, and all the encouragement to write down what I practice. I would not be here without you. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: What You Can Do About Your Anxious Brain PART I UNDERSTANDING YOUR BRAIN ONE How Your Brain Makes You Anxious TWO Managing Your Brain With Medication PART II MANAGING THE ANXIOUS BODY THREE Technique #1: Change Your Intake FOUR Technique #2: Breathe FIVE Technique #3: Practice Mindfulness With Shifting Awareness SIX Technique #4: Relax PART III MANAGING THE ANXIOUS MIND SEVEN Technique #5: Stop Catastrophizing EIGHT Technique #6: Stop Anxious Thoughts NINE Technique #7: Contain Your Worry TEN Technique #8: Talk Yourself Into Changing Behavior PART IV MANAGING ANXIOUS BEHAVIOR ELEVEN Technique #9: Control TMA (Too Much Activity) TWELVE Technique #10: Implement a Plan and Practice Recommended Reading & Resources References Index Acknowledgments Everyone should be so lucky. I have had the support and encouragement of some amazingly talented women through my life. They have made my life easier and have encouraged me to learn, to study and to share what I have learned. They have turned sad life experiences into learning, doubled my delight in my successes, made life fun, and turned me on to new ideas, perspectives, and opportunities. They have taken me in: into their homes at times, into their hearts, and into their lives. The blessing of knowing these particular women has brought me to this point. In addition to Shannon Burns and Susan (Luigi) Palo Cherwien, I have benefited from long discussions about faith, writing, psychotherapy, relationships, and healing with Mary Jane Murphy, Deb Schwarz, Yonah Klem, Gatchina Hessler, Nancy Hoffman, Laurel Coppersmith, Sandy Faulkner, Lurlene McDaniel, and Mary Lou Carney. Learning how to manage anxiety has been a professional trek as well as a personal one. I have learned important aspects of this from so many different teachers, mentors and colleagues along the way. Paul Bauer-meister, Dan O’Grady, and Judy Flaxman are chief among so many who have been instrumental in my path to this point. A book does not get written without the help of the people who really know what they are doing. I appreciate the generosity of Drs. Syed and Fatima Ali in reviewing the chapters. I am also grateful to be working with my editor, Andrea Costella. She has been exceptional in her listening and responsiveness throughout this project. She gave exactly the kind of clear and competent direction I needed. Thanks to Casey Ruble, an excellent copyeditor who made this all read so much better. And, for the first encouragement to get this down in writing, Rich Simon at the Psychotherapy Networker, a creative man and an extraordinary editor, I owe a debt of gratitude. The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques Introduction: What You Can Do About Your Anxious Brain “I don’t think I want to live if I have to go on feeling like this.” I hear this remark all too often from anxiety sufferers. They may say it matter-of-factly or dramatically, but they all feel the same way: If anxiety symptoms are going to rule their lives, their lives don’t seem worth living. What is it about anxiety that makes otherwise high-functioning people so frantic to escape? The sensations of doom or dread or panic can be truly overwhelming. In fact, they are the very same sensations that a person would feel if the worst really were happening. Anxiety in this millennium is pervasive. Up to a third of the U.S. population suffers a panic attack during their lifetime. Statistics from the website of the Anxiety Disorder Association of America indicate that 40 million Americans are afflicted with an anxiety disorder, and that these people are three to five times as likely to seek medical help and six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders as people without anxiety. Too often people who are panicky or filled with dread feel driven to seek the instant relief of medication, but this prevents them from learning about what is happening to them or exploring other options to eliminate anxiety. Medication, considered by insurance and drug companies to be the first line treatment for anxiety, is losing public favor as people realize that they have unpleasant side effects and their symptoms reemerge when they stop using the drugs. The good news is that recent neurobiology research has changed the medical therapeutic understanding of anxiety disorders forever. It is clear that anxiety is generated from specific problems with structure and function in the brain. This means that people have great power to use their brains to change their brains. Medication is just one option of many—people can relieve their anxiety by changing aspects of their lifestyle, thought, and behavior.
The list of books you might like
