12 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
anxiety symptoms through education- based initiatives
grounded in scientific principles. We wrote this book with
this very idea in mind.
W hom This Book Is For
This book is for anyone who wants to better manage and
ultimately outsmart his or her anxiety. Everyone experi-
ences anxiety at some point, but its effects— meaning the
way you feel when you are anxious— vary from person to
person. For some people, anxiety might be a mild irritation
or a nuisance, whereas for others it can be incredibly dis-
tressing or even debilitating. Regardless of where your
symptoms fall on this spectrum, you can use this book as a
self- directed, empirically based guide for managing every-
day symptoms of anxiety. The information and practice sug-
gestions presented throughout this book are intended to
help you achieve a meaningful reduction in anxiety by learn-
ing to think differently about your anxiety, changing your
reactions to your emotions, and acquiring new habits to
skillfully confront and outsmart your anxiety. We want to
provide you, or anyone you know who’s seeking help in man-
aging his or her anxiety, with a comprehensive and inte-
grated daily self- help guide.
This book will also be equally useful for anyone who
doesn’t have problematic anxiety or a diagnosable condition
but who does experience unhelpful or unnecessary anxiety
from time to time. In fact, many of the principles and skills in
this book can be used by anybody. You certainly don’t have
to be struggling with anxiety in order to learn mindfulness
or to learn better emotion management, but you do have to
be committed to learning and practicing the material.