Margaret Wehrenberg - The 10 Best Anxiety Busters: Simple Strategies to Take Control of Your Worry

THE 10 BEST

ANXIETY

BUSTERS

SIMPLE STRATEGIES TO TAKE
CONTROL OF YOUR WORRY

DR. MARGARET WEHRENBERG

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

NEW YORK LONDON

All case studies referred to in this book are composites. No character is meant to reflect any individual person and all circumstances and names are altered to protect identities.

Copyright 2015 by Margaret Wehrenberg

All rights reserved

First Edition

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Wehrenberg, Margaret.

The 10 best anxiety busters : simple strategies to take control of your worry / Dr. Margaret Wehrenberg. First Edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-71076-2 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-393-71077-9 (e-book)

1. Anxiety. I. Title. II. Title: Ten best anxiety busters.

BF575.A6W43994 2015

152.46dc23

2014027706

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue,
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To my personal Anxiety Busters:
you know who you are
you are on my speed dial!

F IRST AND FOREMOST, I want to acknowledge my editors. Andrea Dawson is such an inspiration and supporter. She always has a new idea and helps me execute it. She is also one of the kindest people I know and has such good sense about what will work in my books. That means she can steer me in the right direction without hurting my feelings.

Casey Ruble is a wonder. She can take whatever I have written and improve on it. She always makes sure my ideas are clear. The wonder of it is that she can do this and make it sound like my voice, only better.

I try not to burden my friends too much with hearing about the book while it is in progress, but I must say that everyone should be so blessed with such encouraging people in their lives. All in their own way have made this book come to fruition: Shannon and Susan, Mike, MJ, Cathy, the Pittsburgh Three, Lurlene and MaryLou, Ellie and Hal, and my eight brothers and sisters and their spouses and children.

Those who have offered me speaking engagements have been surprisingly helpful because the opportunities to share what I am doing connect me with the very consumers and professionals who are asking important questions. There is nothing like being asked a tough question to push a person to learn more, if only to be able to answer it in the future. I can only hope these opportunities to share and learn continue.

I also want to acknowledge the grace of my clients. I am humbled by their trust and hope in the face of the pain they experience. Every day they make me want to know more so that I can help each one of them recover more quickly.

THE 10 BEST

ANXIETY

BUSTERS

A Worried Mind, and Body Too:
What Kind of Anxiety
Do You Have?

H AVE YOU EVER suddenly felt like your throat was closing up and you couldnt catch your breath? Like your chest was tightening, and you were getting dizzy, and you might pass out or even die? Maybe it happened before you boarded an airplane, or as you entered a crowded restaurant. Maybe it just happened out of the blue, with no apparent reason at all.

Or have you ever sat in a business meeting, or arrived at a party, and suddenly felt exposedlike all eyes were on you, but not in a good way? Did you blush, start to sweat, feel your hands tremble, or worry that youd say something stupid? Did you find yourself avoiding similar situations after that?

Or how about those more vague but stubbornly persistent feelings of worry that just wont go away? That lump in your stomach that keeps telling you somethings wrongvery wrongeven when you logically know theres nothing to fret about?

If youve had any of these experiences, you may be suffering from anxiety.

Youre not alone. According to the Anxiety Disorder Association of America, 40 million Americans face this same challenge. And many are just as perplexed about how to tackle the problem as you are.

The good news is that there are tried and true ways of managing these symptoms. Some of them are easy and immediately effective. Others take a little more time and practice. But theyre all about using your brain to change your brainand to change your body, too.

This book is here to help.

Its Not Just in Your Head

Anxiety is a very real medical issue with symptoms that are mental, emotional, and physical. Mentally, you may be plagued by worries or preoccupied with fear or thoughts of dying or going crazy. Emotionally, you may feel an ambiguous but profound sense of dread, or an acute fear of panic or social situations. Physically, you may experience a racing heart, dizziness, shortness of breath, achiness, or tingling sensations.

Anxiety comes in many forms, but all affect the head and the body. Fortunately, bodily symptoms can be controlled by conscious effort on the part of your brain. When you get better control of those bodily symptoms, the worried mind starts to relax, too. And when you can calm your worried mind, the body relaxes in kind.

The brain is an incredibly complicated organ, far too complicated to explain here. But you can essentially think of it as having two partsan emotional, unconscious part that feels fear, and a rational, conscious part that logically assesses things. For example, suppose youre hiking on a mountain trail when you hear rustling in the bushes. You immediately bolt down the trail, trying to escape the bear or mountain lion. Then you look back over your shoulder, see that the rustling was just another hiker, and stop your mad dash. That run! response was caused by your unconscious brain. Then your logical, conscious brain stepped in and said, Look around, assess the situation! Oh, its okay. Im in no danger.

Anxiety works on a feedback loop. If your body gets tense, your unconscious brain notices it and says, Oh! There must be something to worry about! And when your unconscious brain says there must be something to worry about, your body kicks into even higher gear. And around and around it goes.

But the process also can work in reverse. You can use your conscious brain to tell your body to relax, and when your body relaxes, it tells your unconscious brain to relax, too. Its this reverse process that the techniques in this book are based on. Use them regularly, and youll be able to turn that negative feedback loop into a positive one.

But where do you start? The first step is figuring out what kind of anxiety you may have.

If your body gets tense, your unconscious brain notices it and says, Oh! There must be something to worry about!... But the process also can work in reverse. You can use your conscious brain to tell your body to relax.

What Kind of Anxiety Do You Have?

True anxiety disorders can be diagnosed only by a trained healthcare professional. But the checklists on the following pages offer a good starting point for getting a sense of whether this book may help you. They list the typical symptoms of three common types of anxiety: panic, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety.