Therapy for anxiety Therapy for anxiety
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Effects of anxiety.
Now examine each aspect of your life and decide how Anxiety affects it – use your notebook and work through each of the headings on the previous page. Here is an example from someone with severe
agoraphobia:
Physical: sick and shaky, lightheaded.
Emotional: fear, even at the thought of going out, embarrassed when I
have to tell people.
Thinking: supposing I do go out, and I collapse in public.
Behaviour: avoid going out, even to the dustbin.
Whole self: feel like giving up.
Spiritual: hate my life.
And another example from someone with OCD:
Physical: feel better doing rituals, apart from knot in stomach.
Emotional: fear, and ashamed of need to keep cleaning toilet.
Thinking: if I don’t clean it’ll be my fault if someone gets ill.
Behaviour: clean everything every day and clean toilet at least 10 times, more on bad days.
Whole self: hate myself.
Spiritual: I know that I’m responsible.
Understanding the detail of your particular Anxiety problem will help you focus on the changes you can make. As you change some things, you’ll find that others change without you making a conscious effort. The lifestyle changes in section one were aimed at reducing some of the physical effects of Anxiety. This section will concentrate on your behaviour – the things that you do because of your Anxiety
