Managing Stress and Anxiety - Instant Download Workbook

Managing Stress & Anxiety

Professional Resource - Patient Education Client Workbook

Comes as a downloadable .pdf file for easy storage & access.
Print the specific pages you want, on demand!
License to Copy Agreement means you never need to re-order!

Control Reactions to Life's Stressors!

Packed with great tools for reducing anxiety, minimizing stressful situations, and relieving distressing physical and emotional symptoms.

Education sections help clients understand important strategy concepts, and simple yet powerful practical application worksheets help foster lasting healthy changes.

An excellent adjunct to our hypnosis CD's and Relaxation CD's!

Includes an Individual "License to Copy Agreement" so you can print/copy sections or the whole workbook again and again to use with your personal clients, and never need to re-order forms or violate copyright terms!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Section 1: Understanding Stress and Anxiety
What is Anxiety? ------------------------------------page 4
Symptoms of Anxiety -------------------------------page 5
WORKSHEET 1 --------------------------------------page 6
What do we Fear? ----------------------------------page 7
Anxiety and Stress ----------------------------------page 8

Section 2: Understanding the Mind and Body
Handling Anxiety Producing Situations ------------page 9
WORKSHEET 2 --------------------------------------page 10
Cognitive (thinking) Products of Anxiety ----------page 11
WORKSHEET 3 --------------------------------------page 13
WORKSHEET 4 --------------------------------------page 14
Physical Products of Anxiety -----------------------page 15
WORKSHEET 5 --------------------------------------page 16
WORKSHEET 6 --------------------------------------page 17
WORKSHEET 7 --------------------------------------page 18

Section 3: Tolerating Anxiety and Stress
Relaxation and Distress Tolerance Training ------page 19

Section 4: Managing Anxiety and Stress
Using Solutions to Anxiety and Stress -------------page 21
WORKSHEET 8 --------------------------------------page 22
Using What You Have ------------------------------page 23
WORKSHEET 9 --------------------------------------page 24
More Helpful Hints ----------------------------------page 25

EXCERPT :

COGNITIVE (thinking) PRODUCTS of ANXIETY
Stress and Anxiety affect our thoughts and beliefs... and... our thoughts and beliefs can also affect our Anxiety and Stress.

We act on what we believe. If you believe things are not true, you will act on these beliefs. It is essential for the stressed or anxious person to begin to tell themselves the truth about their emotions and situations that produce anxiety.

Truth is different from positive confession or affirmation. There has recently been, in both religious businesses and mental health, a philosophy teaching 'positive affirmation' as the key to solving problems. While there is nothing inherently wrong with positive affirmations, these affirmations must be based in truth.

For example, consider the person who, following the positive affirmation theory, continually tells themselves that they are ‘healthy, wealthy and wise’, because they would like to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. If this person is actually HIV-positive, has an IQ of 70, and lives on a limited income source, they are likely not to become healthy, wealthy, and wise, no matter how many positive affirmations they tell themselves. And so, even though we want to tell ourselves positive, uplifting things, it is important that they be grounded in reality.

Instead of telling yourself that “Nothing will go wrong”, you should consider telling yourself that, “If something does go wrong, I can handle it!”

Sometimes the opposite problem occurs. The stressed or anxious person may be telling themselves mis-beliefs or cognitive errors (things that are not true) about themselves, their situations, and the future. The stressed or anxious person often says things to themselves like, "I won't be able to handle this situation". "It's only getting worse." "If I lose control or somebody sees me sweating, that would be awful."

The anxious person is an expert at creating cognitive errors and acting on mis-beliefs. If you believe, for example, that, “this situation will never change,” you will probably not take action to change the situation, even if it is unpleasant. If you believe that, “there is no way to solve problems,” you will act by not solving the problem. It is important to change these cognitive errors, and replace them with truthful statements.

There are three basic kinds of thoughts we have, in relation to anxiety and stress:

PHANTOM THOUGHTS / IMAGES: Phantom thoughts and images are those pictures and beliefs that do not appear to come from anywhere specific. These are the distressing (and usually untrue) thoughts and images that just seem to ‘pop’ into our minds, and when we think about them, they cause us anxiety and worry.

NEGATIVE Self-IMPLANTS: Negative Implants are the beliefs and images that we conjure up and tell ourselves, often in response to Phantom Thoughts. Generally, these thoughts and images are not true, or are only slightly true, and they, too, begin to cause us more feelings of anxiety and worry.

POSITIVE Self-IMPLANTS: Positive Implants are the most important kinds of thoughts and images related to anxiety. These are the thoughts and pictures that are true or at least more reasonable, that we need to be telling or showing ourselves, no matter how difficult it may be to accept them, at first.

Consider this Example:
SITUATION: Chris is late coming home from work, with no warning or explanation.

MIND / THOUGHTS / BELIEFS / IMAGES:
1.) PHANTOM THOUGHT / IMAGE: Fireball collision on side of road.
2.) NEGATIVE IMPLANT THOUGHT / IMAGE: Chris must be in a fireball collision on the side of the road, or he/she would have called. I should Worry.
BODY / PHYSICAL REACTIONS: Heart races, hands and teeth clench, sweating....
3.) ACTIONS/BEHAVIORS: Pace the floor, have a few drinks, call office, hospitals
4.) CYCLE CONTINUES

This is a common scenario for many people, anxiety disordered or not. The difficulty of situations like these comes when we do not recognize and then attempt to counter our Automatic Phantom or Negative Implant thoughts and images with Positive or Truthful thoughts and images. If we allow ourselves to carry on believing the falsehoods or unsubstantiated thoughts and pictures in our minds, we will continue to act on them, and this can cause us much distress and despair.

The following two worksheets are designed to help you Identify the Automatic Phantom and Negative Self-Implant Thoughts and Images that you lay on yourself, that are not true, and to learn to replace them with ones that are true, or at least more realistic.

Sometimes it can be difficult for us to actually recognize or accept the automatic things we tell ourselves that are not true. This is because by definition, or at least assumption, we usually wouldn’t tell ourselves things that we really knew were untrue. If you find this assignment difficult or confusing, you are encouraged to discuss the matter with a counselor, spouse, friend or relative.

It is often easier for an outside person to be more objective at recognizing these kinds of mis-beliefs. An outside source may also be able to help you come up with realistic and healthy Positive Self-Implant Thoughts, more easily than you could on your own. Do not be afraid to seek out and ask for this help.

The most important part of the first worksheet is the Positive Self-Implant Thoughts. These are the realistic things that you should tell yourself when you feel stressed or anxious. You may want to use a totally separate sheet of paper for this list, and keep it with you all the time for reference and support when you are feeling stressed or anxious. Even when you are not feeling particularly stressed or anxious, review these Positive Thoughts, and practice telling them to yourself in front of a mirror, again and again. This is how you develop new habits or automatic behaviors to replace the old, unhealthy ones.