Anxiety self help often requires you to do your own coaching and motivation.
How easy is that?

This page defines what is anxiety self help, outlines key points for psychology self help and describes some key elements of self help for anxiety.

To be clear what we are talking about here in terms of self help for anxiety, this page is in two main parts - 1. anxiety and 2. self help.

Anxiety self help - part one: anxiety - what is it?.

If you are aware of some or all of the following symptoms, you may be suffering from anxiety:

* often feeling irritable

* muscle pains or tension

* frequent indigestion or stomach cramps or nausea

* always feeling worried (sometimes about nothing in particular)

* sleeping poorly and feeling tired most of the time

* finding it difficult to concentrate

* palpitations

* dizziness or feeling faint

* excessive sweating or trembling.

Defined as:

a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event with an uncertain outcome,
anxiety frequently feels like fear.

It is part of life, experienced by all of us from time to time, and it serves a purpose.

Psychologically, anxiety can be useful in keeping us alert and in providing motivation to positive action.

Physically, it can prepare us to fight or flee or freeze when we are faced with danger.

Self help anxiety becomes difficult to achieve when our anxiety is excessive or when it persists after we no longer need it.

Anxiety may appear in many disguises:

For example:

* generalised - that is, you feel anxious all of the time about nothing in particular. Continuous stress may lead to this feeling or it may deterioriate into depression or abuse of alcohol or drugs or negative effects on health.

* phobias - e.g. fear of something specific such as spiders or flying or open spaces or dying or.....

Although your rational thinking may know that the risks in a particular situation are minimal, it is dominated by your limbic survival thinking so strongly that you cannot control it.

* panic attacks - unpredictable, out of control, intense feelings of psychological, mental and emotional anxiety so strong they may make you feel that you are going to die.

Common causes of anxiety needing anxiety self help:

* trauma - that is, "normally", when we experience anxiety in a situation, and then we resolve the issue, the anxiety goes away.

However, some situations are so upsetting or deeply threatening that the anxiety persists long after the situation is gone (e.g. post traumatic stress disorder).

* health problems - e.g. mental or physical health disorders (which will often require medication or treatment from a health care professional to enable anxiety self help to be successful).

* genetics - some people do seem more predisposed to anxiety than others.

* vicious circle negative thinking - e.g. you may experience a mild discomfort of some sort but come to believe that it is a symptom of a serious disease which you then worry about making the symptom worse etc. etc.

* drug abuse

Anxiety self help - part two: self help - what is it?.

Self help, otherwise known as self improvement, refers to the acts of an individual to improve himself or herself without assistance from anyone else.

The term refers to any measure used to improve mental, physical, financial or spiritual conditions alone or by means of books or other reference materials.

Some other definitions of psychological self help do include the practice of forming support groups - that is, it may be "self" help but that doesn't mean that you have to be alone.

If you do belong to, or join a team, there may be great self help self improvement benefits in experiencing team building and in learning from a team profile of thinking preferences

What does this psychology self help mean in practice?

In a nutshell, for me, self help success means fulfilling TWO roles simultaneously:

* being the learner, doing the learning AND being the coach, doing the coaching of yourself

* being the participant in your self improvement programme AND being in control of designing it, setting the goals, preparing your personal development plan, monitoring progress and performance, solving problems etc. etc.

* being the one who is changing AND being the one who has to encourage you when your self motivation weakens

* being the leader AND being the follower.

So how easy is this?

I don't know.

I mean, I find it easy, especially after 30 years of practice, but will YOU?

I guess there's only one way really to find out - DO IT, and keep on doing it and see what happens.

Here's how I go about it:

Firstly, and fundamentally, I know and accept that I have to fulfill TWO roles - learner and coach - and this requires me to switch hats when needed, sometimes "Dr. Jekyll" and sometimes "Mr. Hyde" (as it were).

Second, I commit to these two roles and give both of them equal validity and significance.

That is, when I am wearing my "me" hat, I am me (whatever that means) and it's valid that I'm the one doing the work to self improve and I'll reap the returns on my investment (e.g. anxiety self help).........IF........

And that's where the other role - the coaching role - is equally valid. I really do believe that I couldn't do it without you, my coach (i.e. me).

So, when I wear my coaching hat, I am NOT "me", I am my coach (who I value and need) and I behave as I believe a coach would behave to enable anxiety self help, for example.

Third, therefore, I talk to myself a lot, as if I was two different people.

When I am "me", I AM me, but when I am my coach, I act the role (with what I think would be a coach's purpose) and I do the coaching as best I can, treating "me" with respect but as if I was a separate person.

Do I argue with myself at times?

Absolutely.

Who wins?

Sometimes me and sometimes my coach (that's me as well, so I never lose).

Here's the thing though, when I win, and I reflect on it later, I nearly always wish that my coach (me again) had prevailed because he was encouraging me to achieve what was in my best interests and I was settling for short-term gratification (e.g. I don't feel like exercising or working on my anxiety self help tonight so I'll watch TV instead).

And when my coach wins, although I moan and grumble about it at the time, once I have achieved success at whatever he encouraged me to do, I thank my coach for my self improvement benefits and for helping me to help myself - for reinforcing and building my capacity for future psychological self help.

Simple

Well, what do you think?

I am sure there are other ways of going about it (probably without having to become two different people - or, more accurately, assume two different roles), but this simple approach works brilliantly - for me.

Ultimately, of course, anxiety self help, as with all self help, IS the only kind of help that can bring about reductions in anxiety, motivation, coaching, achieving goals and self improvement success.

That is, no one can do it for you, can they?

Five key suggestions to achieve anxiety self help success in practice:

1. maintain perspective - anxiety is "normal" but its emotional nature may cause it to dominate and spiral out of control.

Raise your self awareness and act quickly if you feel that this is happening. For example, pull in other resources to help, such as a health care professional, technical expert or facilitator.

2. learn to relax at will. This is one of the most effective anxiety self help techniques.

3. share the problem - e.g. by talking it through with a trusted friend or family member who is a great listener.

The old advice that, "a problem shared is a problem halved", is great self help for anxiety.

4. improve your condition - for example, either start or increase activities such as physical exercise (consult your medical adviser first, of course) or yoga or meditation techniques to boost your physical, emotional and psychological strength to deliver effective anxiety self help.

5. consider joining an anxiety self help support group or web forum.

(click here if you wish to know more about, "Who am I?", and some background information).

A few final thoughts about anxiety self help:

1. if you are going to be your own coach, you probably need to learn a little bit about coaching - click this link, and/or how to be a facilitator - click this link, for some basic guide lines

2. equally, it will be useful to know some things about programming your conscious and unconscious minds for success, especially if you will need to work through the change curve to achieve your anxiety self help.

3. and, having some understanding of how motivation works will certainly help, especially if the going gets tough and needs some stress management.

4. be sure to use the i-c-s-i way and effective goal setting.

This may also involve a self diagnosis exercise and a self diagnosis summary of the strengths and weaknesses pattern that emerges and that creates anxiety self help and self improvement opportunities.

Click here to see some motivational phrases and motivation quotes.

Anxiety self help, as with all self help issues, IS the only way ultimately to achieve self improvement success.
Do your own coaching and self motivation.
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Other recommended sites:

If you wish to learn about a self help method for dealing with emotional and energy blockages that may be adversely affecting your wellbeing, click here - http://www.emofree.com/ (this will open in a new window)



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