Confronting Your A nx iety 93
to interrupt these thought processes and learn to think more
accurately about your experience (Treanor 2011).
Outsmarting Anxiety Skill #2:
Confront, rather than avoid, your anxiety.Suggested Practices
First, here are some tips for confronting your anxiety, to
guide you as you practice exposing yourself to objects and
situations that you fear:
- Set an achievable goal that identifies a fear you
wish to overcome (for example, “I want to target
my fear of heights by riding over a tall bridge”). - Develop an exposure plan (listing all the aspects
of your goal, from least to most frightening) with
graduated steps, to help you slowly confront your
a n x iet y. - Remember, exposures can include both imaginal
(thinking about a feared object or situation in
your head) and in vivo components. - Rate your level of distress and anxiety (for
example, on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 repre-
senting no distress and 10 representing signifi-
cant distress) before, during, and after each step
of the exposure plan. - Eliminate safety nets, or ways of coping that make
your anxiety easier to manage (such as using sub-
stances, people, or various distractions).