Attitude and tackling anxiety, panic and phobias

When it comes to tackling anxiety or panic attacks, and taking those first steps or the giant leap into a phobic situation, your attitude can either make you or break you. A Cognitive Behavioural Therapist I know once told me that the client should always have the attitude “let’s see what happens”. She saw each anxiety provoking situation like a scientific hypothesis waiting to be tested. The client would say “I’ll go mad!” and she would say “let’s test that hypothesis, let’s see what happens.” That simple mantra to repeat in your head while tackling anxiety and panic can be surprisingly useful. If panic rises up with in you, instead of saying “I can’t handle this”, you can say “let’s see where this goes”. The more you realise that it doesn’t go anywhere the more confident you get. One of the best ways to quickly overcome panic and anxiety is to learn to accept it and not be afraid of it. The eminent Australian anxiety, panic attack and agoraphobia expert Dr Claire Weekes once summed up her numerous books, recordings and radio appearances, in effect her whole career, in one word: accept. The attitude of acceptance goes a long long way.

A word or two should also be said about the work of Dr Reid Wilson who’s excellent site Anxieties.com has a section on attitude. He talks at length on the subject and I recommend you visit. In short it’s a good idea to try and learn from you panic or anxiety, tell yourself that it’s OK to feel anxiety, that you don’t have to fight it, that you can handle the uncertainty of the future, and handle setbacks.

Too many people approach anxiety and panic attacks with the same negative attitudes, namely: I can’t take it, I can’t cope, I must relax right now, I have to get out of here, why do I have this, there’s no way out of this. These attitudes are your enemy….

This is the first part of an article on Anxiety 2 Calm’s free Overcoming Anxiety Course. You can view the remainder by clicking here: Free Anxiety Course.