What Is ANXIETY?

1. What Is ANXIETY? • Feeling nervous • Feeling uptight • Feeling uneasy • Feeling apprehensive • Anxiety is also known as distress, worry, trepidation, apprehension, dread, fear, concern, shyness, timidity, nervousness, , cautiousness, scared, frightened …it can have a lot of names. • What these names all have in common is the fact that when you feel them, it ‘s because you are expecting that something bad is going to happen.

2. Anxiety • Anxiety is a normal emotion. • We all have it. • It is not always bad. • It is important to help us survive, keep safe, and perform better.

3. Anxiety is often helpful! • Top athletes/actors/singers/ musicians usually feel anxious before they perform, anxiety helps “rev them up” and do their best. Good anxiety help give you motivation, if you are a bit nervous about doing well on an examination you are more likely to study for it.

4. Event: You are walking across the street and a fast car is heading towards you. • There are three aspects to anxiety • 1. Physical • 2. Cognitive (thinking) • 3. Behavior (How you act)

5. Event: You are walking across the street and a fast car is heading towards you. • Physical • Increase in heart rate • Adrenalin flows • Tightening of muscles • Twitching • Tremors or shakes

6. Event: You are walking across the street and a fast car is heading towards you. • Cognitive (Thoughts) • OMG THEY’RE GOING TO HIT ME!!!! Something bad is going to happen.

7. Event: You are walking across the street and a fast car is heading towards you. • Behavior (how are you going to behave? • Flight – jump out of the way. • The main behavior reaction to anxiety is the fight or flight that is fight the perceived danger or run away from it.

8. Event: You smell smoke in your house. • Cognitive (Thought) • OMG I’M IN DANGER. THERE’S A FIRE.

9. Event: You smell smoke in your house. • Physical: • Heart beats fast. • Muscles respond more quickly.

10. Event you smell smoke in your house. • Behavior How do you act? • Fight – Try to put out the fore. • Flight – Leave the house

11. When does anxiety become a problem? • When an event occurs but there is no need to be fearful. • You hear a noise outside and think it a burglar but it was really the next door neighbor’s cat. Our body still reacts as though it was in danger but there wasn’t any.

12. What Are the Physical Effects of Anxiety? • Increase in heart rate • Sweating • Tightening up of muscles • Twitching • Tremors

13. What Are Signs of Anxiety? • “Butterflies” in stomach • Rapid heartbeat • Shaky voice • Muscle tension • Sweaty hands • Dry mouth • Difficulty holding hand steady • Difficulty concentrating

14. What Are the Most Common Situation That Causes Anxiety With Teenagers?Is this a real danger or a imagined danger?

15. How Do You Deal With Situations That Cause You Anxiety?EatingSmokingSleepingListening to musicDeep BreathingExercisingMediating

16. Point to Ponder • People deal with situation that produce anxiety in various ways: • Some people do nothing and just put up with it. • Some people avoid situations which are difficult for them. • Some people have their own ways of dealing with these situations.

17. Techniques (Skills )for Coping With Anxiety / Stress • There are specific techniques for dealing with the physical reaction to real or perceived anxiety. • Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercise • Deep Breathing • Focus Breathing • Mental Rehearsal

18. Let’s Practice • Into to muscle relaxation • muscle group arms • muscle group2 face • muscle group3 stomach • muscle group4 legs • mind relax

19. Techniques (Skills) for Coping with Anxiety. • If you learn to control you thoughts you will go a long way to reduce the stress in your life

20. Your involvement in any situation will consist of the following components

21. Your involvement in any situation will consist of the following components

22. Problematic Thinking Styles • All or Nothing Thinking • “If your not perfect you’re a failure.” • The world is completely safe or dangerous.

23. Problematic Thinking Styles • Overgeneralizations: you see a single event as a never ending pattern. You think without proof it will happen again and again and again. • “ I am going to be victimized again” • “ Bad thing keep happening to me so I must be a bad person”

24. Problematic Thinking Styles • “Must” “Should” and “Never” statements. • These are unwritten rules on how you behave that a based on myths rather than facts. • They are rules you learned growing up that seem that they can never change. • They are rules you must live up to. “ I should be able to handle this” “ I should have know that something like this would happen” “ I will never feel better” “ They should not tease me”

25. Problematic Thinking Styles • Overestimate of risk = This occurs when you assess risk much greater than the evidence supports. • “I’m not going to take a walk because I might get attacked again” • “I can’t go into tall buildings because they may fall down” • “ I can’t go into the city because it a terrorist target” • “I can’t go on airplanes because they may crash” • “I can’t go on roller coasters because I may fall off. • “I can’t go driving because I might get into a car accident”

26. Problematic Thinking Styles • Self Blame = a tendency to blame yourself for any negative outcome. People who engage in self blame are not able to accurately assess the responsibility of others. They tend to attribute blame to themselves where they have little or no responsibility at all. • “It’s my fault that this terrible event happened.” • “My girlfriend/boyfriend is upset with me, so I must be to blame.”

27. Problematic Thinking Styles • Catastrophizing= These thoughts come when you focus on the most extreme negative consequence and expect the worst to happen. These thoughts make you very afraid and anxious. Many times they are triggered by “what if” thoughts or statements. This is the worst thing that ever happen to me! What happens if she doesn’t go out with me. I’ll die!

28. Realistic Thinking • 1. Identify the thought behind