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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Don't panic! Managing Anxiety with Mindfulness For Dummies is a practical guide to overcoming your worries and minimising anxiety using mindfulness techniques. The National Health Service and the National Institute for Care and Excellence recommend mindfulness as a legitimate treatment for anxiety, and its also been proven to alleviate stress, depression, low self-esteem, and insomnia. This book explains the benefits of mindfulness, and how it can help you face your fears and defeat persistent, irrational worries. Learn how to break the anxiety cycle with an optimistic approach, live in the present moment, and manage your thoughts using the fundamental techniques of mindfulness therapy. This friendly guide will accompany you every step of the way as you understand your anxiety, identify solutions to your problem, maintain your gains, and avoid relapse. Over three million people in the UK suffer from Generalised Anxiety Disorder, with millions more experiencing phobias, OCD, and panic disorders. Anxiety is potentially debilitating, but many people are daunted by navigating the health system and thus fail to seek treatment. This book provides a way for you to begin managing your symptoms at home, using simple techniques that can help change the way you think, feel, and act. * Understand what anxiety is, and the common causes * Employ mindful self-compassion to alleviate symptoms * Discover mindful attitudes and practise mindful mediation * Transform unhealthy habits into anxiety-busting self-care Mindfulness can help you break free of the downward spiral of negative thought and action, and make positive choices that support your wellbeing. If you're tired of being anxious and long for a brighter outlook, Managing Anxiety with Mindfulness For Dummies provides a wide range of effective techniques to help you enjoy a calmer and happier life.
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Seitenzahl: 220
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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Managing Anxiety With Mindfulness For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com
This edition first published 2015
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Managing Anxiety with Mindfulness For Dummies®
Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/managinganxiety to view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Getting Started with Managing Anxiety
Chapter 1: Peering into the World of Anxiety
Comparing Fear, Excitement and Anxiety
Discovering the Effect of Anxiety on the Mind
Finding out the Physical Effects of Anxiety on Bodily Functions
Understanding the Fight-or-Flight Response
Exploring Why Thinking Negatively Is a Natural Human Trait
Recognising Whether Your Anxiety Is Normal or Severe
Applying Mindfulness to Your Anxiety
Chapter 2: Finding Out the Common Causes of Anxiety
Exploring Common Causes of Anxiety
Understanding the Influences Affecting Your Anxiety
Realising How Modern-Day Living Can Affect Your Anxiety
Part II: Learning More about Mindfulness for Anxiety
Chapter 3: Discovering Mindful Attitudes Toward Anxiety
Discovering Your Starting Attitude
Understanding the Benefits of Mindfulness
Challenging Preconceived Ideas about Mindfulness and Meditation
Common Misconceptions
Viewing Mindfulness as a Way of Living
Introducing the Mindful Breathing Exercise
Chapter 4: Managing Your Thoughts Mindfully
Accepting That Thoughts Impact Your Mind and Body
Bringing Mindful Attention and Curiosity to Your Thoughts
Understanding That Thoughts Aren’t Necessarily Facts
Discovering the Breathing Space Meditation
Chapter 5: Practising Deeper Mindfulness Meditations for Anxiety
Introducing the Body Scan Meditation
Introducing the Sitting Meditation
Discovering Mindful Imagery Meditations for Anxiety
Savouring the Mindful Eating Meditation
Chapter 6: Using Mindful Self-Compassion and Kindness for Anxiety
Understanding Loving-Kindness
Letting Go of the Perfectionist
Discovering Compassion for Yourself and Others
Chapter 7: Journeying from Excessive Anxiety to Mindful Wellbeing
Starting the Journey at the Edge of the Forest
Keeping a Journal to Strengthen Your Practice
Enjoying the Vital Support of Other People
Part III: Applying Mindfulness Every Day for Anxiety
Chapter 8: Living Mindfully Day-to-Day
Engaging in Daily Mindfulness Meditations
Maintaining Positive Relationships
Dealing with Difficult Relationships
Chapter 9: Changing Unhealthy Habits to Healthy Ones to Combat Anxiety
Cutting Down on Stimulants and Certain Drugs
Looking after Yourself Physically
Avoiding Overuse of Technology at Home
Motivating Yourself to Meditate
Chapter 10: Taking the Next Step in Your Mindfulness Practice
Determining Whether Your Anxiety Needs Medical Attention
Engaging in an Eight-Week Mindfulness Course
Using Mindfulness with Other Forms of Therapy
Expanding Your Mindfulness Practice
Part IV: The Part of Tens
Chapter 11: Ten Simple Mindfulness Exercises for Managing Anxiety
Being Mindful in Nature
Carrying out a Mini Body Scan Meditation
Trying out a Mini Sitting Meditation
Breathing Mindfully
Practising a Mini Loving-Kindness Meditation
Listening Mindfully
Cooking Mindfully
Walking Mindfully
Stretching Mindfully
Cleaning Mindfully
Chapter 12: Ten Mindful Attitudes for Easing Anxiety
Practising Present-Moment Awareness
Helping Your Beginner’s Mind to Blossom
Spotting Your Tendency to Judge
Considering Curiosity
Opening up to Anxiety
Developing Self-Compassion
Pursuing Patience – without Rushing
Operating with Optimism
Generating Gratitude
Allowing Acceptance to Grow
About the Author
Cheat Sheet
Advertisement Page
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Introduction
Welcome to Managing Anxiety With Mindfulness For Dummies. Mindfulness has ancient roots in Buddhism and other religions but is now rapidly gaining recognition as a secular practice that can help manage and reduce chronic pain, depression and anxiety. It also has many other benefits such as greater joy in the present moment, better sleep quality and less stress.
Everyone experiences some difficulties over the course of their life, including anxiety. This is a natural and normal part of the human experience. Mindfulness offers a way of managing anxiety in an accepting and balanced way, so that when anxiety does arise, you will be able to realise it and manage it and watch it evaporate in its own time, without judging or forcing it to move away.
Mindfulness also helps you when your life is going well. You live more in the present moment, are more focused and less stressed, are kinder to yourself and those around you, more willing to forgive yourself when you make mistakes, have a greater connection to the world around you and are more grateful.
I’ve written this book to make managing your anxiety with mindfulness achievable in your life. There are explanations for what anxiety is and why we experience it and meditations that you can practice in your daily life. Some are short exercises and some are longer, so even with a busy life, they are easy to slot into a daily routine.
About This Book
In this book is some theory about anxiety and why we suffer from it, how mindfulness works to help manage it and a range of different exercises with explanations of how to do them. Mindfulness works best when it is practised by engaging in the meditations and exercises, so this book is great for not only understanding your own anxiety but also how to begin to implement mindfulness in your own life.
This book can be used as a guide for mindfulness exercises to help manage your anxiety. The informal mindfulness exercises mentioned in the book cover a wide range of common activities and can be done several times a day, while the more formal mindfulness meditations can be completed once or twice a day to get the maximum effects of mindfulness.
Anxiety is the main focus of this book as it looks at the main ways in which you can use mindfulness to overcome anxiety. However, the mindfulness exercises and tips are also useful if you are suffering from depression, stress or physical health conditions. Mindfulness is also great for improving creativity, allowing yourself to live more fully in the present moment and improving focus and concentration. It has benefits for everyone, not just those who are trying to manage conditions such as anxiety, stress or depression.
Foolish Assumptions
If you have picked up this book, I am assuming that you have heard about mindfulness and how it can help anxiety and want to know more. I am assuming that you want to learn a little bit about how the mindfulness exercises can help you. Lastly, I’m assuming that you want to begin to try mindfulness for yourself, formally, informally or both, which is where this book can help you.
You may have anxiety and are looking for a solution, you may be a therapist who is looking to understand more about mindfulness and use it to help your clients or you may be a concerned friend, relative or partner of someone who struggles with anxiety and would like to learn more about mindfulness in order to try and help. Whatever the situation, I hope this book will prove to be a helpful guide.
Icons Used in This Book
I use icons throughout this book to bring different types of information to your attention and to clearly guide you through the book.
This icon is used to remind you to keep certain things in mind as you go through the book.
The Tip icon can offer little additions to help you enhance a particular exercise or meditation.
This icon is used to help you to engage with mindfulness exercises.
This icon is an alarm that alerts you to common errors and possible dangers, and warns you to take care.
This little owl is an icon for stories and little pearls of wisdom.
Beyond the Book
Find out more about Managing Anxiety With Mindfulness by checking out the bonus content available to you at www.dummies.com.
You can locate the book’s e-cheat sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/managinganxiety, where you’ll find handy hints and tips.
Be sure to visit the book’s extras page at www.dummies.com/extras/managinganxiety for further Managing Anxiety With Mindfulness-related information and articles.
Where to Go from Here
This book offers theory and some exercises to manage anxiety with mindfulness. Being a more of a theory book, I give more space to understanding anxiety and mindfulness and less to practising mindfulness. If you’d like a more practical approach to developing the mindfulness exercises and to experience some guided audio meditations, you may also like Mindfulness Workbook For Dummies by myself and Shamash Alidina (Wiley).
Part I
Getting Started with Managing Anxiety
For Dummies can help you get started with lots of subjects. Visit www.dummies.com to learn more and do more with For Dummies.
In this part . . .
Find out more about the common causes of anxiety.
Discover just how anxiety affects your mind and your body.
Chapter 1
Peering into the World of Anxiety
In This Chapter
Finding out what anxiety is
Exploring the effects of anxiety
Using mindfulness to tackle anxiety
Anxiety is very common. Everyone experiences some form of anxiety on a day-to-day basis. It can be a helpful emotion, making you focused, alert and productive, but it can also be incredibly upsetting, uncomfortable and hard to live with.
In this chapter, I describe the nature, experience and symptoms of anxiety, show how it can affect your body and mind and help you discern whether your levels of anxiety are severe or normal. I also introduce you to mindfulness – what it involves and how it can help when battling anxiety – including a short mindfulness exercise for you to try.
Comparing Fear, Excitement and Anxiety
Fear, excitement and anxiety are all common emotions. All three can conjure the same feelings, but crucial differences exist between them. Fear and excitement can be helpful emotions, whereas anxiety can sometimes result in a lot of discomfort. In this section, I explain the differences between these three feelings.
Investigating fear
Fear is a natural emotion, as is anxiety. In fact, fear raises the same feelings that anxiety can, such as alarm or apprehension. The difference is that with fear, these feelings have a reason behind them.
Fear is a feeling of terror, distress or alarm caused by a danger or a threat. For example, you may feel fear when you see a car racing toward you at great speed, when you’re in a situation where you may slip and fall or when you see a snake.
Clarifying the difference between anxiety and excitement
Feeling emotions such as agitation and distress without a just reason is one of the main factors of anxiety.
Anxiety is similar to fear, but without any obvious danger. It’s a thought focused on something going wrong in the future and is often a notion that things are worse than they really are. Sometimes a traumatic event or lots of stress-causing factors trigger anxiety, but other times it doesn’t have an identifiable reason. For more on the causes of anxiety, check out Chapter 2.
Anxiety is in the present moment, but the reason for it isn’t always clear – unlike with fear.
Everyone on the planet experiences some level of anxiety at some point – it’s a natural part of the human experience! But if you’re finding your anxiety difficult to deal with, don’t worry: Anxiety can be a very treatable condition.
In the physical sense, excitement is very similar to anxiety. If you’re excited about something, you may recognise the same physical sensations, such as a fast heartbeat and sweating.
Although excitement can arouse the same physical reactions as anxiety, the difference is internal. Feeling excited creates positive thoughts of future or past experiences, conjuring up positive outcomes, such as feelings of happiness connected to your social life.
If you’re anxious, however, you may be waking up every day with the same sense of dread but no real reason for it. Perhaps you’re avoiding certain social situations or activities, even though you know that doing so is silly. Check out Table 1-1 for a comparison of fear, anxiety and excitement.
Table 1-1 Differences between Fear, Excitement and Anxiety
Emotional State
Physical Sensations
Reasons
Fear
Fast heartbeat, sweating, high energy
An immediate threat of danger
Excitement
Fast heartbeat, sweating, high energy
Can originate from or lead to positive memories
Anxiety
Fast heartbeat, sweating, high energy
Something that may happen in the future, which is causing worry and stress; or for no clear reason at all
Discovering the Effect of Anxiety on the Mind
The mind expresses anxiety through worry, which often conjures up a collection of images, thoughts and feelings. One of the main anxiety problems that people experience is uncontrollable, excessive worries about anything, from minor to major things, despite no real threat of danger.
Your worries can take the form of several types of disturbing thoughts and feelings, such as the following:
Thinking that you may lose control (go mad)
Feeling detached from the world around you
Thinking that everyone is everyone is watching you and knows that you’re anxious
Wanting to run away to avoid the situation
Visiting the doctor often with irrational worries about your health (for example, thinking that you have cancer or a brain tumour)
Feeling hypersensitive and hyper alert to everything around you
As well as the worrying, anxiety can also affect your mind in other ways:
Feeling irritable
Feeling fearful
Lacking the ability to concentrate
Needing reassurance desperately
Feeling dependent
Feeling depressed
Losing confidence
Anxiety is provoked by thoughts about fear rather than an immediate danger, and so the meaning that the brain gives the thought is all about perception. For example, you may have stumbled in a job interview just once, but the brain remembers this event as an unpleasant experience, which then creates anxiety. Other people may have also stumbled at previous job interviews but did well at the next ones; their brains didn’t let the unpleasant experience take over.
Read Chapter 4 for more on how thoughts affect your mind and body.
Finding out the Physical Effects of Anxiety on Bodily Functions
As I describe in the earlier section ‘Clarifying the Difference between anxiety’ and excitement, the physical effects on the body from anxiety are similar to the effects evoked from fear or excitement:
Heart pounding
Rapid breathing
Urgency to use the toilet more often
Pins and needles
Dizziness
Sweating
Feeling sick
Tense muscles (especially in the chest area)
Dry mouth
Headaches
Chapters 3 and 5 describe how mindfulness meditations can ease your physical health.
Understanding the Fight-or-Flight Response
The fight-or-flight response goes back to the days of cave dwellers and is the body’s natural reaction to danger. A researcher called Walter B Cannon discovered in 1915 that animals experience physical changes when confronted with danger. He found that the increases in blood pressure, secretion of powerful hormones and other physical and psychological changes prepare the animal to fight or flight.
Humans experience this same response to danger. Fight-or-flight is useful when people need to defend their families against wild animals, save them from burning buildings or run from a danger they can’t fight off, such as a natural disaster. But when you’re just doing day-to-day things, such as going to the shops, commuting to work or looking after children, this sudden release of hormones and physical changes can be difficult to deal with.
The excess chemicals that your body releases aren’t needed. As a result, the decreased carbon dioxide level in your lungs and blood can make you feel dizzy or faint, causing you to hyperventilate, which is when a panic attack can occur.
Exploring Why Thinking Negatively Is a Natural Human Trait
Your brain is more likely to think negatively rather than positively for one simple reason: survival.
If people thought positively all the time, they wouldn’t have a natural awareness to danger, and the human race wouldn’t have survived! If cave dwellers had just chilled out all the time, enjoying their cave paintings without a care in the world, the chances are that they’d have been killed and eaten by wild animals pretty quickly.
As a result, the brain is naturally wired to think more negatively than positively, and people are more likely to remember negative events than positive ones. The brain is also very quick at trying to create patterns, even if it has little evidence. It’s your brain’s way of protecting you from danger. The human nervous system is nervous.
Imagine that you stumbled during a work presentation a couple of times in the past – mixing up your notes, spilling your coffee and generally coming across like Mr Bean. The brain remembers these embarrassing events and creates a pattern for you, telling you that every time you have a work presentation, you’ll mess up again. Or say that you’ve had two bad relationship experiences: Your brain can now tell you that all members of the opposite sex are useless.
But you’re no longer a cave dweller. You don’t need this pattern of negative thinking because danger is no longer as imminent as it was thousands of years ago. With no real threat of present danger, these patterns can result in anxiety.
What used to be a saber tooth tiger is now more likely to be a paper-tiger.
It’s noteworthy to learn that humans can turn on the stress response by their thoughts alone, which can have the same measurable effects as any threatening stressor in the environment.
Recognising Whether Your Anxiety Is Normal or Severe
Anxiety of some degree affects everyone at some point. In general, anxiety comes in two levels:
Mild or everyday:
For example, being worried about an upcoming exam, work presentation or a medical test.
Severe or excessive:
For example, chronic worrying with no real reason that severely affects your life and having difficulty remembering the last time you felt relaxed.
I help you discover your personal anxiety levels in Chapter 10.
Suffering from excessive anxiety
High anxiety levels can be very unhelpful, interfering with your daily life and function. Here are some attributes of high or excessive anxiety:
Doesn’t have a known reason or only a very vague one
Very intense, well beyond everyday anxiety
Lasts much longer than everyday anxiety, perhaps weeks or months
Has an unfavourable impact on living, perhaps leading to unhelpful and addictive behaviours, such as consuming drugs or alcohol, avoidance or withdrawal as ways of coping.
Sometimes you can have very high levels of anxiety without having an anxiety disorder that can be long term, such as Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). This is normal and can be caused by stressful and traumatic life events, such as a divorce, moving house, the loss of a loved one and other big life changes, which can create anxiety feelings. Mindfulness can help with this because it teaches you to be an observer of your experience rather than feel attached to it. So when life gets a little difficult, you can better manage any anxious feelings that may arise.
Accepting that mild anxiety can be helpful
Mild anxiety that you don’t find debilitating can be useful. Everyone worries, and as long as it isn’t excessive, it can be a good thing. Anxiety increases your attention and so can enhance productivity and performance. If I didn’t have any anxiety whatsoever, I’d never get this chapter written! But I know that I have a deadline looming, and so my brain is kicking me into action to get writing and working. Otherwise, I’d still be at home lounging about!
Here are some other examples of mild anxiety being helpful: just before you go to speak in public; before you participate in any competitive sport; before you take an exam; and before you hand in an important piece of work for a qualification or a work presentation.
Your anxiety keeps you focused by increasing your attention, allowing you to stay productive and get the job done.
Examining two common experiences of anxiety
Here’s an example of how one event can spiral anxiety out of control.
Janet was feeling unwell one day and got on a train at a busy time when everyone was leaving work. On this train, she started feeling really sick and then fainted suddenly. Other people on the train looked after her and a friend met her to take her home, but she kept remembering the unpleasant event on that train home from her work. She started to take a different route to work and leave later so that the train wouldn’t be as busy. She then started cutting down her hours at work, leaving the house when it was less busy on her route to work. Eventually, she started to work from home, fearful of other commuters and public transport and refusing to leave the house.
No evidence supported the idea that Janet was going to get sick and faint on a train again, but her anxiety took over and stopped her from doing her daily commute that she was so used to.
In this next common experience of anxiety, a stressful event arises, and the brain goes into overdrive.
Adam was a bright and intelligent student. He enjoyed learning and getting involved in projects. He was creative and contributed a lot to whatever group he worked with. However, when exam time arrived, he suffered terrible anxiety. It took over his brain, and he found himself stressed, under pressure and unable to concentrate on studying. He started to panic about the lack of study that his anxiety was stopping him from doing, thus making the anxiety worse.
The more Adam started to worry about his anxiety causing these issues, the worse it got.
Applying Mindfulness to Your Anxiety
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
—Franklin D Roosevelt
Scientific studies show that the development of a regular mindfulness practice can improve the way you experience life. With regular practice, you may feel less stressed, better equipped to deal with difficult situations, feelings or emotions, including your anxiety, and more focused and healthier as a result.
Chapter 7
