The Power of the Mind Over Anxiety

The first step is to identify your thoughts. Here's some ways to do that:

Find the "What ifs?"

For the next week, every time you have a thought that starts with "What if.... " jot it down. At the end of your week take a look at your list. What if thoughts are just about always negative. In other words, no one thinks things like, "What if I win the lottery?" or "What if I have a great week?" or "What if nothing bad happens?"

Take a good look at your list of what if thoughts. How many do you have? How negative are they? Did any of them come true? How much did they affect your anxiety level? These are all important questions for you to consider as you begin to try to change your interpretation about your thoughts.

Event - Thought - Mood Record

Another way to identify your thoughts is to flag them when events occur that make you anxious. Make a three column chart with the headings, "Event," "Thought, " and "Mood." You are interested in events where you feel anxious, and it's a good idea to rate your anxiety on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means you experienced no anxiety at all and a 100 would occur during the worst panic attack or anxiety that you've had. Write down a phrase that describes the event such as, "talked to my boss about the big project." Then ask yourself, "What was running through my mind as I was experiencing this event?"

It may take a little practice, but after a few events, you should get better at identifying your thoughts.

Re-Interpretation of Thoughts:  An Example

Once you identify some thoughts that you have while anxious, it's time to consider whether your interpretation of them is accurate or not. Start by taking one of your "hot" thoughts. A "hot" thought is a thought that has a high level of anxiety associated with it, and is a thought that bothers you quite a bit. Let's take the example of Alice, who had a hot thought, "If my heart beats fast, I could have a heart attack." On a scale of 0-100, Alice ranked her anxiety in connection with this thought at an 85.

I asked Alice make two columns, one labeled "Evidence that supports my hot thought," and "Evidence that does not support my hot thought." For the first column I asked Alice to tell me every reason that supports the thought that she could be having a heart attack. Here's what her column looked like:

Evidence that supports the thought that I could have a heart attack

"My aunt had a heart attack when she was 5 years older than I am now."
"People who have heart attacks usually do not feel good right before them."

After making the first column, we worked on the second column:

Evidence that does not support the thought that I could have a heart attack

"I had my heart tested and it is healthy."
"When I get anxious, my heart beats fast from the anxiety, not from heart problems."
"When I exercise, I raise my heart level on purpose, and I don't think I will have a heart attack then."