The Anxiety Toolkit

protecting your family, it s not as great when you re an employee convinced you re getting fired.

For many of us who suffer from anxiety, our anxiety alarms fire too often when there isn t a good reason to be excessively cautious. Why does this happen? We may have more sensitive anxiety systems. Or we may have been doing things to decrease our anxiety in the short term, such as avoiding things that make us feel anxious, that have actually increased it in the long term.

Having some false anxiety alarms where you see threats that don t exist or worry about things that don t eventuate isn t a defect in your system. Think of it in caveman terms: In a life-and-death sense, failing to notice a real threat (termed a false negative) is more of a problem than registering a potential danger that doesn t happen (termed a false positive). Therefore, having some false anxiety alarms is a built-in part of the system, to err on the side of caution.

People feel anxious when they step outside their comfort zone. Avoiding stepping outside your comfort zone would lead to living life less fully. Since I m anxiety-prone by nature, almost every major decision I ve made in my life has involved feeling physically sick with anxiety. If I weren t willing to make decisions that lead to temporarily feeling more anxious, my life would be much emptier than it is today.

Reducing your anxiety to zero isn t possible or useful. Anxiety itself isn t the problem. The problem occurs when anxiety gets to the point that it s paralyzing, and you become stuck. I think of these bottlenecks as anxiety traps. We re going to work on managing your responses to five anxiety traps: excessively hesitating before taking action, ruminating and worrying, paralyzing perfectionism, fear of feedback and critici

lives with this toolkit.
---Dr. Todd B. Kashdan, author of OK: The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why being your whole self - not just your good self - drives success and fulfillment

"An easy-to-follow...workbook on understanding and managing anxiety...Boyes s tone is friendly but never saccharine, and endlessly practical. Her tips and exercises, drawn from cognitive behavioral therapies that she herself has administered, should make a valuable reference for anxiety sufferers, and an ideal companion to readers undergoing psychotherapy themselves."
---Publishers Weekly


"Therapist Boyes' "toolkit" is filled with "nuts-and-bolts" remedies for combating anxiety-driven inertia. Boyes, who claims that she, too, has been "anxiety-prone," begins by explaining that anxiety itself isn't the problem. It can actually be beneficial by making us more cautious and methodical in our tasks. The problem lies in how we become trapped by our real or perceived fears and are unable to act. Boyes concentrates on five areas hesitancy, rumination and worry, perfectionism, fear of feedback, and avoidance where anxiety can lead to bottlenecks. She begins each chapter with a quiz, allowing readers to gauge their needs, and then offers "experiments" suggesting specific, safe breakthrough techniques such as visualizing positive alternative outcomes or remembering successes. The therapist takes care to suggest nonthreatening options and to remind readers that working with their tendencies, not against them, delivers greater results. Far from the pat "don't worry, be happy" approach, Boyes' practical, easy-to-follow methods will be reassuring and useful to a wide range of readers."
---Booklist