Overcoming anxiety for dummies

Title:

Overcoming anxiety for dummies

Author:

Elliott, Charles H., 1948-

ISBN:

9780764554476

Publication Information:

New York : Wiley Pub., c2003.

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Suggested Age	Status
Book	Searching... Cox Landing Public Library	152.46 E	Adult	Searching... Unknown

Discover new medications for easing symptoms

Fight anxiety and win the war against your worries!

Think you worry too much? You're not alone - over 25 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.

Praise for Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies

"In Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies, Elliot and Smith have provided a timely and informitive description of the reasons why people become anxious and what they can do about it."
- Steven D. Hollon, PhD. Professor of Psychology,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

Author Notes

Charles H. Elliott, PhD, and Laura L. Smith, PhD, are both clinical psychologists specializing in the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders.

Introduction	p. 1
About This Book	p. 1
What Not to Read	p. 2
Foolish Assumptions	p. 2
How This Book Is Organized	p. 2
Icons Used in This Book	p. 4
Where to Go from Here	p. 4
Part I Detecting and Exposing Anxiety	p. 5
Chapter 1 Analyzing and Attacking Anxiety	p. 7
Anxiety: Everybody's Doing It	p. 8
Tabulating the Costs of Anxiety	p. 9
What does anxiety cost you?	p. 9
Adding up the cost to society	p. 10
Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety	p. 11
Thinking anxiously	p. 11
Finding anxiety in your body	p. 11
Behaving anxiously	p. 12
Seeking Help for Your Anxiety	p. 13
Matching symptoms and therapies	p. 14
Choosing where to start	p. 15
Finding the right help	p. 17
Chapter 2 Examining Anxiety: What's Normal, What's Not	p. 19
Presenting the Seven Main Types of Anxiety	p. 20
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: The common cold of anxiety	p. 21
Social Phobia--avoiding people	p. 22
Feeling panicky	p. 24
The panic companion--Agoraphobia	p. 26
Specific Phobia--spiders, snakes, tornados, airplanes, and other scary things	p. 28
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Feeling the aftermath	p. 29
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder--over and over and over again	p. 31
Sorting Out What's Normal from What's Not	p. 34
Knowing what anxiety isn't	p. 36
Other emotional disorders	p. 36
Mimicking Anxiety: Drugs and Diseases	p. 37
Exploring anxiety-mimicking drugs	p. 37
Investigating medical anxiety imposters	p. 39
Preparing to Fight or Run	p. 41
Chapter 3 Clearing the Roadblocks to Change	p. 45
Digging Out the Roots of Anxiety	p. 45
Sleuthing your genetic villains	p. 46
It's my parents' fault!	p. 47
It's the world's fault!	p. 48
Moving from Self-Abuse to Self-Acceptance	p. 48
Having Second Thoughts About Change	p. 51
Deciding if You Really Want to Get the Show on the Road	p. 52
Debating the decision	p. 53
Taking off from the starting blocks	p. 54
Chapter 4 Watching Worries Come and Go	p. 59
Following Your Fears All the Way Down the Line	p. 59
Observing your anxiety from stem to stern	p. 59
Writing about your worries--warts and all	p. 61
Sizing Up Success	p. 64
Part II The Thought Remedies	p. 65
Chapter 5 Becoming a Thought Detective	p. 67
Distinguishing Thoughts from Feelings	p. 68
Blocking the blues	p. 68
Getting in touch with your feelings	p. 70
Getting in touch with your thoughts	p. 71
Tracking Your Thoughts, Triggers, and Feelings	p. 75
Tackling Your Thoughts: Thought Therapy	p. 77
Weighing the evidence: Thought court	p. 77
Rethinking risk	p. 79
Deconstructing the worst-case scenario	p. 81
Cultivating Calm Thinking	p. 87
Being your own best buddy	p. 87
Creating calm	p. 88
Chapter 6 Busting Up Your Agitating Assumptions	p. 91
Understanding Agitating Assumptions	p. 91
Finding Your Agitating Assumptions	p. 92
Testing Your Beliefs and Assumptions	p. 94
Coming Down with a Case of Agitating Assumptions	p. 96
Shattering your reasonable assumptions	p. 96
Acquiring assumptions in childhood	p. 97
Challenging Those Nasty Assumptions: Running a Cost/Benefit Analysis	p. 98
Prudence the perfectionist	p. 98
Anne's approval addiction	p. 101
Peter's feeling of vulnerability	p. 101
Jeff's need for control	p. 102
Daniel's dependency	p. 103
Challenging your own agitating assumptions	p. 104
Designing Balanced Assumptions	p. 105
For the perfectionist	p. 105
Balancing an approval addict	p. 106
Balancing vulnerability	p. 107
Relaxing control	p. 108
Diminishing dependency	p. 108
Above All: Be Kind to Yourself!	p. 109
Chapter 7 Watching Out for Worry Words	p. 111
Stacking Little Sticks into Bonfires of Anxiety	p. 111
Extremist words	p. 112
All-or-none, black-or-white words	p. 114
Judging words	p. 115
Victim words	p. 116
Tracking Your Worry Words	p. 117
Refuting and Replacing Your Worry Words	p. 118
Exorcising your extremist words	p. 119
Disputing all or none	p. 120
Judging the judge	p. 121
Vanquishing victim words	p. 122
Part III Anti-Anxiety Actions	p. 125
Chapter 8 Facing Fear One Step at a Time	p. 127
Exposure: Coming to Grips with Your Fears	p. 128
Stepping into exposure	p. 128
Imagining the worst	p. 133
Facing your fears (gulp)	p. 134
Conquering Your Fears	p. 136
Waging war on worry: GAD	p. 136
Fighting phobias, Specific and Social	p. 138
Pushing through panic and agoraphobia	p. 140
Overriding an obsessive-compulsive disorder	p. 142
Chasing Rainbows	p. 146
Chapter 9 Simply Simplifying Your Life	p. 147
Evaluating What's Important Versus What's Not	p. 148
Quizzing to find what you hold dear	p. 148
Tallying up what you put your teeth into	p. 149
Ranking Priorities	p. 151
Delegating for Extra Time	p. 151
Just Saying "No"	p. 153
Chapter 10 Let's Get Physical	p. 155
Ready ... Exorcise!	p. 156
Don't Wait for Willpower--Just Do It	p. 157
Defeating defeatism	p. 158
Rewarding yourself for exercise	p. 160
Busting barriers to exercise	p. 162
Surrounding yourself with a few cheerleaders	p. 163
Working in Your Workout	p. 164
Selecting an Exercise--Whatever Turns You On	p. 164
Pumping up your heart and lungs	p. 165
Lifting your way out of anxiety	p. 166
Yearning to try yoga?	p. 167
Chapter 11 Sleep, Sweet Sleep	p. 169
Giving Sleeplessness a Name	p. 170
The ABCs of Getting Your Zs	p. 171
Following a Few Relaxing Routines	p. 172
Associating sleep with your bed	p. 172
Just before hitting the hay	p. 173
Watching what you eat and drink	p. 173
Mellowing medication	p. 174
What to Do When Sleep Just Won't Come	p. 174
Nagging Nightmares	p. 175
Part IV Focusing on Feeling	p. 179
Chapter 12 Relaxation: The Five-Minute Solution	p. 181
Blowing Anxiety Away	p. 182
Abdominal breathing--only five minutes a day	p. 184
Book breathing	p. 185
Panic breathing	p. 186
Mantra breathing	p. 187
The gentle inhale/exhale technique	p. 188
Chilling Out	p. 188
Relaxing by tightening: Progressive muscle relaxation	p. 188
Hypnotizing yourself: Autogenic training	p. 192
Relaxing when it counts: Applied relaxation	p. 195
Relaxing Via Your Senses	p. 196
Sounds to soothe the savage beast	p. 196
Only the nose knows for sure	p. 196
Massaging away stress	p. 197
Chapter 13 Creating Calm in Your Imagination	p. 199
Letting Your Imagination Roam	p. 200
Imagining touch	p. 200
Recalling sounds	p. 201
Conjuring up smells	p. 202
Remembering tastes	p. 203
Painting pictures in your mind	p. 204
Full Sensory Imaging	p. 205
Relaxing at the beach	p. 206
A forest fantasy	p. 206
Customizing Your Own Images	p. 207
Chapter 14 Relieving Anxiety with Herbs and Dietary Supplements	p. 209
Searching for Supplements	p. 210
Viva vitamins!	p. 211
Sifting through the slew of supplements	p. 212
Hunting for Helpful Herbs	p. 213
Kava kava	p. 214
Valerian	p. 215
Waiting for the verdict on other herbal remedies	p. 215
Chapter 15 Prescribing Peacefulness	p. 219
Making Up Your Mind About Medications	p. 219
The downside of medications	p. 220
The upside of medications	p. 221
Understanding Medication Options	p. 222
Antidepressants	p. 223
Benzodiazepines	p. 228
Miscellaneous tranquilizers	p. 230
Beta blockers	p. 231
Atypical antipsychotics	p. 232
Mood stabilizers and miscellaneous	p. 235
Chapter 16 Mindful Acceptance	p. 237
Accepting Anxiety? Hey, That's a Switch!	p. 238
Taking a dispassionate view	p. 238
Oh, mercy, mercy, me!	p. 240
Tolerating uncertainty	p. 241
Patience is a virtue	p. 242
Reaching serenity or at least getting closer	p. 243
Letting Go of Ego	p. 244
Inflating and deflating the self-esteem balloon	p. 244
It's not easy being green	p. 245
Connecting with the Real Thing	p. 248
Making contact with the present	p. 250
Mindfully noticing and enjoying life	p. 252
Accepting Mindfulness into Your Life	p. 254
Part V Helping Others with Anxiety	p. 255
Chapter 17 Helping Your Kids Fight Anxiety	p. 257
Separating Normal from Abnormal	p. 257
Inspecting the Most Common Childhood Anxiety Disorders	p. 260
Leaving parents: Separation Anxiety Disorder	p. 260
Worrying all the time: Generalized Anxiety Disorder	p. 261
Focusing on phobias: Specific Phobias	p. 261
Connecting with others: Social Phobia	p. 262
Anxious repetition: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder	p. 262
Rare anxieties among children	p. 263
Nipping Anxiety in the Bud	p. 264
Early mastery experiences	p. 264
Fine-tuning emotions	p. 265
Inoculating against anxiety	p. 266
Parenting precautions	p. 267
Helping Already Anxious Children	p. 268
Helping yourself first	p. 268
Modeling mellow	p. 269
Leading children through anxiety	p. 270
Relaxing reduces anxiety	p. 272
Exorcizing anxiety through exercise	p. 274
Chapter 18 When Someone You Love Suffers from Anxiety	p. 277
Discovering if Your Partner Suffers With Anxiety	p. 277
Talking Together About Anxiety	p. 279
Helping without owning the albatross	p. 280
Avoiding blame	p. 280
When help turns into harm	p. 281
Guiding the Way	p. 282
Teaming Up Against Anxiety	p. 285
Accepting Anxiety with Love	p. 286
Part VI The Part of Tens	p. 289
Chapter 19 Ten Ways to Stop Anxiety Quickly	p. 291
Breathing Out Your Anxiety	p. 291
Talking with a Friend	p. 291
Exercising Aerobically	p. 292
Soothing the Body	p. 292
Taking Kava Kava	p. 292
Challenging Your Anxious Thinking	p. 293
Listening to Music	p. 293
Finding Distractions	p. 293
Having Sex	p. 294
Staying with the Moment	p. 294
Chapter 20 Ten Anxiety Busters That Just Don't Work	p. 295
Avoiding What Scares You	p. 295
Whining and Complaining	p. 296
Seeking Reassurance	p. 296
Hoping for Miracles	p. 296
Seeking Quick Fixes	p. 297
Lying on the Couch: Freudian Psychoanalysis	p. 297
Drinking Your Troubles Away	p. 297
Trying Too Hard	p. 298
Sipping Herbal Drinks	p. 298
Taking Medication as a Sole Solution	p. 298
Chapter 21 Ten Ways to Deal with Relapse	p. 299
Expecting Anxiety	p. 299
Counting the Swallows	p. 299
Checking Out Why Anxiety Returned	p. 300
Seeing a Doctor	p. 300
Revisiting What Worked Before	p. 301
Doing Something Different	p. 301
Getting Support	p. 301
Considering Booster Sessions	p. 302
Looking at the Stages of Change	p. 302
Accepting Anxiety	p. 303
Chapter 22 Ten Signs That You Need Professional Help	p. 305
Having Suicidal Thoughts or Plans	p. 305
Feeling Hopeless	p. 306
Handling Anxiety and Depression	p. 306
Trying and trying and trying	p. 306
Struggling at Home	p. 307
Dealing with Major Problems at Work	p. 307
Suffering from Severe Obsessions or Compulsions	p. 307
Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder	p. 307
Going through Sleepless Nights	p. 308
Getting High	p. 308
Finding Help	p. 308
Appendix Resources for You	p. 311
Self-Help Books	p. 311
Resources to Help Children	p. 312
Accessing Web Sites to Discover More About Anxiety	p. 313
Index	p. 315

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