180 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
- Sometimes people doing the mantra breathing exer-
cise find that they can be distracted by other thoughts or
things in their environment, and for anxious people, this
usually happens when they believe they notice something
negative. This time you will be in an even better position
to foster mindfulness. Remember that you can use tech-
niques such as the inhale- exhale practice, in which you
slowly vocalize your mantra as you breathe in and breathe
out. Practice your meditation exercise for ten minutes once
per day after using the cognitive bias modification module.
You will cultivate stronger focus and be better able to mas-
ter your anxiety by being in the present moment.
•••In this chapter, we reviewed some additional scientific liter-
ature on cognitive biases toward threat showing that anxious
individuals have trouble disengaging from dangerous stimuli
initially but tend to avoid it later on. This is the exact atten-
tion process that exacerbates anxiety, but luckily, cognitive
bias modification training can help. Not only do these train-
ing interventions target cognitive biases, they can be inte-
grated with other exercises, letting you benefit even more.
Continue to use these exercises as we move onto the next
chapter, which is about exposure. Combined use of all the
techniques we have mentioned thus far will lead to greater
gains and help you master your anxiety.