Challenging Anxious Thoughts:
When you are anxious, it can sometimes be helpful to slow down and challenge your thinking. Anxiety makes us think in narrow, all or nothing terms and causes us to overestimate the likelihood of things going wrong. This exercise, which I borrowed from Therapistaid.com, is one of my favorites for challenging anxious, catastrophic thoughts.
Thinking Errors:
Our mind has a lot of work to do. It has too much information coming at it all the time to be able to process everything, and it has to create shortcuts. When it does this, sometimes it makes mistakes. These mistakes can cause us to pay attention to only certain evidence or make assumptions about people or information, which can cause emotional pain. Everyone’s brain does this, and it can be helpful to recognize when our mind is making these mistakes so we can start to correct them.
Self-Care Tips:
This handout from therapistaid.com offers several self-care tips that, when used consistently, can reduce stress, relieve intense emotions, and improve physical health. Finding the self-care strategies that work best for you is key to maintaining a balanced lifestyle.
Stress Management Ideas:
Stress can wreak havoc on your life. It affects your health, your sleep, your relationships, your mood and your thoughts. It takes intention to slow yourself down, let some of the to-do list remain undone, and do something that helps you feel even one percent better. When you put your mental and physical health first, you have more energy available to give. Try as many of these ideas as you need to in order to find the skills that work best for you.