Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies

Practical, proven ways to get fear, worry, and panic under control Think you worry too much? You're not alone?over 40 million Americans suffer from some form of anxiety. Help is here in this friendly guide, which offers sound advice on identifying anxiety triggers through taking self-tests, improving your eating habits, relaxing, and finding support for you and your loved ones. Now with 25% new and revised content, Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies, 2nd Edition explores all of the most common triggers for anxiety, recent developments in medications, newly emerging biologically oriented approaches for treating anxiety, and the most up-to-date advancements in psychotherapies. Understand why you?re anxious and pinpoint your triggers Get trusted advice on whether you can overcome anxiety on your own or seek professional help Covers anxiety in teens, young adults, and veterans The practical information in Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies, 2nd Edition is your first step toward getting your life back and winning the war against your worries!

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 About This Book 2 An Important Message to Our Readers 2 Conventions Used in This Book 3 What You’re Not to Read 3 Foolish Assumptions 3 How This Book is Organized 4 Part I: Detecting and Exposing Anxiety 4 Part II: Battling Anxiety 4 Part III: Letting Go of the Battle 4 Part IV: Zeroing in on Specific Worries 5 Part V: Helping Others with Anxiety 5 Part VI: The Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Where to Go from Here 6 Part I: Detecting and Exposing Anxiety 7 Chapter 1: Analyzing and Attacking Anxiety 9 Anxiety: Everybody’s Doing It 9 Tabulating the Costs of Anxiety 10 What does anxiety cost you? 11 Adding up the cost to society 12 Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety 12 Thinking anxiously 12 Behaving anxiously 14 Finding anxiety in your body 14 Seeking Help for Your Anxiety 15 Matching symptoms and therapies 15 Choosing where to start 17 Finding the right help 18 Chapter 2: Examining Anxiety: What’s Normal, What’s Not 21 Knowing When Anxiety is a Help and When It’s a Hindrance 22 Presenting the Seven Types of Anxiety 23 Generalized anxiety disorder: The common cold of anxiety 23 Social phobia: Avoiding people 24 Panic disorder: Way beyond everyday anxiety 26 Agoraphobia: Panic’s companion 28 Specific phobias: Spiders, snakes, airplanes, and other scary things 29 Post-traumatic stress disorder: Feeling the aftermath 31 Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Over and over and over again 33 Seeing How Anxiety Differs from Other Disorders 35 Chapter 3: Sorting Through the Brain and Biology 37 Examining the Anxious Brain 37 Seeing how the brain’s circuits are connected 38 Communicating chemicals 38 Preparing to Fight or Flee 39 Mimicking Anxiety: Drugs, Diet, and Diseases 42 Exploring anxiety-mimicking drugs 42 Ingesting anxiety from your diet 44 Investigating medical anxiety imposters 46 Chapter 4: Clearing the Roadblocks to Change 47 Digging Out the Roots of Anxiety 47 It’s in my genes! 48 It’s how I was raised! 49 It’s the world’s fault! 50 Finding Self-Acceptance 51 Having Second Thoughts about Change 53 Deciding to Get the Show on the Road 54 Arguing with your arguments 55 Taking baby steps 56 Watching Worries Come and Go 58 Following your fears 58 Writing about your worries 59 Getting Help from Others 61 Seeking the right therapies 61 Seeking the right therapist 62 Part II: Battling Anxiety 63 Chapter 5: Becoming a Thought Detective 65 Distinguishing Thoughts from Feelings 66 Blocking the blues 66 Getting in touch with your feelings 67 Getting in touch with your thoughts 69 Tracking Your Thoughts, Triggers, and Feelings 73 Tackling Your Thoughts: Thought Therapy 74 Weighing the evidence: Thought court 74 Rethinking risk 76 Deconstructing worrisome scenarios 78 Cultivating Calm Thinking 84 Considering a “friend’s” perspective 84 Creating calm 85 Affirming affirmations? 87 Chapter 6: Watching Out for Worry Words 89 Stacking Sticks into Bonfires of Anxiety 89 Encountering extremist words 90 Misrepresenting with all-or-none, black-or-white words 91 Running into judging words 92 Turning to victim words 93 Tracking Your Worry Words 94 Refuting and Replacing Your Worry Words 95 Exorcising your extremist words 96 Disputing all-or-none 97 Judging the judge 97 Vanquishing victim words 98 Chapter 7: Busting Up Your Agitating Assumptions 101 Understanding Agitating Assumptions 102 Sizing Up Anxious Schemas 103 Recognizing schemas 103 Assessing your agitating assumptions 104 Coming Down with a Case of Anxious Schemas 105 Acquiring assumptions in childhood 106 Shattering your reasonable assumptions 107 Challenging Those Nasty Assumptions: Running a Cost/Benefit Analysis 108 Analyzing perfection 109 Tabulating approval 112 Reviewing vulnerability 112 Counting up control 113 Debating dependency 114 Challenging your own anxious schemas 115 Designing Calm, Balanced Assumptions 116 Tempering perfectionist tendencies 117 Balancing an approval addict 118 Balancing vulnerability 119 Relaxing control 120 Diminishing dependency 120 Above All: Be Kind to Yourself! 121 Chapter 8: Facing Fear One Step at a Time 123 Exposure: Coming to Grips with Your Fears 123 Getting ready by relaxing 124 Understanding your fears 125 Constructing a staircase of fear 127 Imagining the worst 129 Facing your fears (gulp) 130 Conquering All Types of Fears 131 Waging war on worry: GAD 132 Fighting specifi c and social phobias 133 Pushing through panic and agoraphobia 135 Taking on post-traumatic stress disorder 137 Overriding an obsessive-compulsive disorder 139 Expecting the Impossible 143 Chapter 9: Considering Medications and Other Physical Treatment Options 145 Making Up Your Mind About Medications 145 The downside of medications 146 The upside of medications 147 Understanding Medication Options 147 Antidepressants 148 Benzodiazepines 153 Miscellaneous tranquilizers 154 Beta blockers 155 Atypical antipsychotics 155 Mood stabilizers 157 A few intriguing medication options 157 Searching for Supplements 158 Viva vitamins! 161 Sifting through the slew of supplements 161 Stimulating the Brain 162 Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) 162 Deep brain stimulation (DBS) 163 Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) 163 Part III: Letting Go of the Battle 165 Chapter 10: Looking at Lifestyle 167 Friends and Family — Can’t Live with ’em, Can’t Live without ’em 167 Staying connected to others 168 Delegating for extra time 169 Just saying “no” 169 Ready Exorcise! 170 Don’t wait for willpower — Just do it! 171 Working in your workout 173 The ABCs of Getting Your Zs 174 Creating a sleep haven 174 Following a few relaxing routines 175 What to do when sleep just won’t come 177 Designing Calm Diets 178 Enjoying small, frequent portions 178 Following nutritional common sense 179 Chapter 11: Relaxation: The Five-Minute Solution 181 Blowing Anxiety Away 182 Discovering your natural breathing pattern 183 Breathing like a baby 183 Using panic breathing in high-stress situations 185 Relaxing Your Whole Body 186 Knowing what to expect 186 Discovering the progressive muscle technique 187 Applying Relaxation in Tense Situations 189 Relaxing through Your Senses 190 Sounds to soothe the savage beast 190 Only the nose knows for sure 191 Massaging away stress 192 Chapter 12: Creating Calm in Your Imagination 193 Letting Your Imagination Roam 194 Imagining touch 195 Recalling sounds 196 Remembering tastes 197 Conjuring up smells 198 Painting pictures in your mind 199 Full Sensory Imaging 200 Relaxing at the beach 200 A forest fantasy 201 Customizing Your Own Images 202 Chapter 13: Mindful Acceptance 203 Accepting Anxiety? Hey, That’s a Switch! 203 Taking a calm, dispassionate view 204 Tolerating uncertainty 205 Being patient with yourself 206 Letting Go of Ego 207 Inflating and deflating the self-esteem balloon 208 Appreciating your imperfections 209 Connecting with the Here and Now 211 Making contact with the present 213 Putting worries about the future to rest 214 Mindfully meditating 215 Accepting Mindfulness into Your Life 217 Savoring Spirituality 217 Part IV: Zeroing in on Specific Worries 219 Chapter 14: Facing a Career Crisis and Financial Woes 221 Meeting Job Worries Head-On 221 Shoring up your resume 222 Finding fl exibility in your career view 223 Considering careers with stability 224 Keeping the right focus 225 Taking Stock of Your Resources 226 Tallying up your fi nancial balance sheet 226 Knowing your personal assets and liabilities 227 Committing to a New Game Plan 228 Setting short-term goals 228 Planning for the long haul 230 Chapter 15: Keeping Steady When the World is Shaking 231 Assessing Your Risks 232 Looking at the likelihood of dying from a natural disaster 232 Tabulating your personal risks 233 Preparing a Plan for Realistic Worries 234 Imagining and Dealing with the Worst 237 Rethinking uncertainty and anxiety 237 Rethinking your ability to cope 238 Going right at your worries 239 Doing Your Part to Improve the World 241 Helping the environment 241 Volunteering in disasters 242 Chapter 16: Staying Healthy 243 Figuring Out the Connection between Worry and Health 243 Recalculating the Costs and Benefi ts of Health Worry 245 Tabulating Risks of the Modern World 247 Examining the evolving realities of diseases and treatments 247 Weighing local versus global health risks 248 Watching out for exaggerated claims 250 Taking an Inventory of Your Personal Health 250 Checking out your lifestyle 250 Accepting your genetic risks 251 Designing a Health Action Plan 252 Chapter 17: Keeping Out of Danger 253 Evaluating Your Actual, Personal Risks 253 Maximizing Your Preparedness 254 Taking charge of personal safety 254 Avoiding unnecessary risks 255 Dealing with Trauma 256 Thinking through what happened 257 Exposing yourself to the incident 258 Accepting a Certain Degree of Uncertainty 258 Choosing to put yourself in high-risk situations 259 Experiencing danger in everyday places 259 Part V: Helping Others with Anxiety 263 Chapter 18: When a Family Member or Friend Suffers from Anxiety 265 Discovering Whether Your Loved One Suffers from Anxiety 266 Talking Together about Anxiety 268 Helping without owning the albatross 268 Avoiding blame 269 When help turns into harm 269 Guiding the Way 271 Coaching the right way 272 Looking at a coach in action 274 Teaming Up against Anxiety 276 Accepting Anxiety with Love 277 Chapter 19: Recognizing Anxiety in Kids 279 Separating Normal from Abnormal 279 Inspecting the Most Common Childhood Anxiety Disorders 282 Leaving parents: Separation anxiety disorder 282 Worrying all the time: Generalized anxiety disorder 284 Focusing on phobias: Specifi c phobias 285 Connecting with others: Social phobia 285 Anxious repetition: Obsessive-compulsive disorder 285 Rare anxieties among children 286 Chapter 20: Helping Kids Conquer Anxiety 287 Nipping Anxiety in the Bud 287 Early mastery experiences 288 Fine-tuning emotions 289 Inoculating against anxiety 290 Taking precautions via parenting style 290 Helping Already Anxious Children 293 Helping yourself fi rst 293 Modeling mellow 293 Leading children through anxiety 294 Relaxing to reduce anxiety 296 Exorcizing anxiety through exercise 299 Getting Help from Others 300 Who to get help from 300 What to expect at the fi rst session 301 What happens in therapy? 302 Part VI: The Part of Tens 303 Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Stop Anxiety Quickly 305 Breathing Out Your Anxiety 305 Talking with a Friend 305 Exercising Aerobically 306 Soothing the Body 306 Drinking Tea 306 Challenging Your Anxious Thinking 307 Listening to Music 307 Finding Distractions 307 Having Sex 308 Staying with the Moment 308 Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Deal with Relapse 309 Expecting Anxiety 309 Counting the Swallows 309 Checking Out Why Anxiety Returned 310 Seeing a Doctor 310 Revisiting What Worked Before 310 Doing Something Different 311 Getting Support 311 Considering Booster Sessions 311 Looking at the Stages of Change 312 Accepting Anxiety 312 Chapter 23: Ten Signs That You Need Professional Help 313 Having Suicidal Thoughts or Plans 313 Feeling Hopeless 314 Handling Anxiety and Depression 314 Trying to No Avail 314 Struggling at Home 315 Dealing with Major Problems at Work 315 Suffering from Severe Obsessions or Compulsions 315 Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 316 Going through Sleepless Nights 316 Getting High 316 Finding Help 317 Appendix: Resources for You 319 Self-Help Books 319 Resources to Help Children 320 Accessing Web Sites to Discover More about Anxiety 321 Index 323

About the Author :
Charles H. Elliott, PhD, and Laura L. Smith, PhD, are clinical psychol-ogists who specialize in the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders. They are the authors of several For Dummies books, including Borderline Personality Disorder For Dummies and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder For Dummies.