This exercise if for anxious people who find themselves worrying about things to the detriment of quality of life, concentration on their work, and/or getting to sleep at night.
Rather than thinking about everything you need to worry about throughout the day and into the night, choose a thirty-minute time period that is not directly before bedtime, and sit down to get your worrying out of the way for the next 24 hours. Now is your chance to worry thoroughly and completely about every anxiety, concern, and fear that you face. The first step is to make a list identifying each of your worries. Take a sheet of paper and write as follows:
1.
2.
3.
...etc. up to thirty worries.
Once your list is absolutely complete (make sure not to leave anything out), review each worry. Consider every possible consequence of what you're worried about--including the dire, extreme, and catastrophic. Worry hard. That is what you are doing right now. Then when your thirty minutes are up, fold the list and put it away somewhere safe--in your pocket or purse, or at your desk or nightstand. You still have the list, so there's no danger of forgetting anything. But now you're done with worrying for the day, and can go on to living the rest of your life.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Essential Bibliography
Here are my favorite books for dealing with depression and anxiety:
The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns, MD. It's jam-packed with cognitive behavioral techniques for dealing with depression, and can't be digested all at once, but is a good resource.
For people who have been through at least one course of therapy for depression, Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You, by Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.
For anxiety in general, and specific anxiety disorders, "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" by Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D.
For emotional distress and lack of coping skills, a book I really like, even though it was written especially for people with Borderline Personality Disorder: "The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation & Distress Tolerance": by Matthew McKay, Ph.D., Jeffrey C. Wood, Psy.D., and Jeffrey Brantley, MD. I particularly like this book because of how accessible it is. I have been practicing some of the skills it suggests since I began reading it and using it in therapy.
The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns, MD. It's jam-packed with cognitive behavioral techniques for dealing with depression, and can't be digested all at once, but is a good resource.
For people who have been through at least one course of therapy for depression, Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You, by Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.
For anxiety in general, and specific anxiety disorders, "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" by Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D.
For emotional distress and lack of coping skills, a book I really like, even though it was written especially for people with Borderline Personality Disorder: "The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation & Distress Tolerance": by Matthew McKay, Ph.D., Jeffrey C. Wood, Psy.D., and Jeffrey Brantley, MD. I particularly like this book because of how accessible it is. I have been practicing some of the skills it suggests since I began reading it and using it in therapy.
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