Don't Let Your Anxiety Run Your Life , livre ebook

“Most experts agree that anxiety and the closely related emotion of fear are fundamental to the human condition, and serve a valuable function by helping us avoid danger, adapt, and even plan for the future. And yet in our society individuals spend billions of dollars yearly to rid themselves of anxiety. The problem is that these fundamental emotions so necessary for our survival become excessive and pervasive in some individuals to the extent that their lives become paralyzed. Fortunately, our understanding of the nature of these emotions has advanced dramatically in the past several decades. Now, two outstanding young clinicians and scientists studying the nature and treatment of anxiety have distilled their cutting-edge knowledge to provide an integrative, easy-to-read and apply program for excessive anxiety and fear. Representing the latest and most effective techniques available, every individual suffering from anxiety will benefit by becoming acquainted with this program.”
—David H. Barlow PhD, ABPP , professor of psychology and psychiatry Emeritus at Boston University, and founder and director Emeritus of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders
“In mental health treatment, there is an increasing appreciation of the importance of emotion regulation—the skills that allow people to effectively cope with painful feelings—and the fact that people can learn more effective strategies for emotion regulation. In Don’t Let Your Anxiety Run Your Life , David Klemanski and Joshua Curtiss take the reader step by step through the emerging science of emotion regulation, and illustrate how to apply that knowledge to everyday life. I heartily recommend this book for anyone who wants to master unwanted anxiety, and I anticipate that a lot of readers are going to find it extremely helpful.”
—David F. Tolin, PhD, ABPP , author of Face Your Fears
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Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2016 by David H. Klemanski and Joshua E. Curtiss
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Sara Christian; Interior design by Michele Waters-Kermes; Acquired by Melissa Valentine; Edited by Will DeRooy
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Klemanski, David H., author. | Curtiss, Joshua E., author.
Title: Don't let your anxiety run your life : using the science of emotion regulation and mindfulness to overcome fear and worry / David H. Klemanski, Joshua E Curtiss ; foreword by Stefan G Hofmann.
Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016001939 (print) | LCCN 2016004497 (ebook) | ISBN 9781626254169 (paperback) | ISBN 9781626254176 (pdf e-book) | ISBN 9781626254183 (epub) | ISBN 9781626254176 (PDF e-book) | ISBN 9781626254183 (ePub)
Subjects: LCSH: Anxiety. | Mindfulness (Psychology) | Mind and body. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Anxieties & Phobias. | PSYCHOLOGY / Emotions. | BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Meditation.
Classification: LCC BF575.A6 .K584 2016 (print) | LCC BF575.A6 (ebook) | DDC 152.4/6--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001939
Contents
Foreword
—Stefan G. Hofmann, PhD
introduction: Understanding Your Anxiety
Overview of the Book
What Is Anxiety?
What Is Emotion Regulation?
What Is Mindfulness?
How Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness Can Help You Outsmart Your Anxiety
Why We Wrote This Book
Whom This Book Is For
Using This Book to Manage Your Anxiety
Using the Online Content
chapter 1: Linking Anxiety, Emotion, and Mindfulness
What Are Emotions?
What Is Emotion Regulation?
The Link Between Anxiety and Emotion
Helpful vs. Problematic Emotions
Assessing Your Anxiety and Emotions
The Nature of Anxiety
The Components of Anxiety
Anxiety and Emotions and Their Relationships to Mindfulness
What Does Mindfulness Entail?
chapter 2: Overcoming Attention Biases
Attention and Observation
How Anxiety Demands Your Attention
Attentional Bias Toward Threat
Attentional Bias Toward Interoceptive Awareness
The Mindful Way of Paying Attention
Outsmarting Anxiety with Skills Development and Practice
Suggested Practices
chapter 3: Confronting Your Anxiety
The Vicious Cycle of Anxiety and Avoidance
What Is Avoidance?
What Is Anxious Avoidance?
Why Do You Avoid?
The Impact of Early Learning Experiences on Anxiety
Conditioning
Shaping Your Anxiety Responses Through Reinforcement
Physiological Influences on Behavior in Anxiety
Overcoming Avoidance
Optimizing Your Anxiety
Exposure
Integrating Mindfulness and Exposure
Suggested Practices
chapter 4: Thinking Traps
Different Thinking Styles
Repetitive Negative Thinking and Anxiety
Repetitive Negative Thinking and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Repetitive Negative Thinking and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
Repetitive Negative Thinking and Panic Disorder (PD)
Repetitive Negative Thinking and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
A Nonjudgmental Approach to Repetitive Negative Thinking
Suggested Practices
chapter 5: Emotional Inflexibility
Trying to Control Your Emotions
Responding to and Managing Your Emotions
Suggested Practices
Specific Strategies for Flexibly Regulating Your Emotions
Adaptive and Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies
Adaptive Emotion Regulation
Reappraisal
Problem Solving
Acceptance
Decentering
Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Skills
Suppression
Avoidance
chapter 6: Information Overload
Conscious vs. Unconscious Processing
Explicit vs. Implicit Emotion Regulation
How Cognitive Biases Darken Your Emotional Experiences
How Mindfulness and Attentional Training Can Reduce Threatening Emotions
Suggested Practices
chapter 7: Feeling Bad Is Actually Good
Fostering Emotional Acceptance with Mindfulness
The Positive Side of Negative Emotions
Mindfully Accepting Emotions
Internal vs. External Anxiety Stimuli
Suggested Practices
chapter 8: Unhelpful Habits
Attention and Confronting Your Fears
Disengagement from Threat
Eventual Threat Avoidance
How Changing Your Habits Prepares You to Deal with Frightening Situations
Using Attention Games to Quell Your Anxiety
Suggested Practices
chapter 9: Emotional Avoidance
How Emotional Avoidance Does More Harm Than Good
Being Safe vs. Being in the Present Moment
Suggested Practices: External Fears
Suggested Practices: Internal Fears
chapter 10: Making a Habit of Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation
Seeing the Big Picture with Your New Skills
Using This Book in Your Daily Life
Resources for Anxiety
Final Thoughts
Acknowledgments
David H. Klemanski
Joshua E. Curtiss
References
Foreword
F ear and anxiety are fundamental aspects of human existence. Virtually every student of the human condition, from the ancient Greek philosophers to Sigmund Freud to contemporary theorists of psychology, has tried to make sense of these experiences. Unlike other species, humans spend a lot of time thinking about past failures and worrying about possible future events. If we feel our future is uncertain, we experience anxiety.
Anxiety is a future-oriented mood state associated with, or even caused by, worrisome thought processes. When we are anxious, our mind is focused on the future and on the things that could go wrong. To some extent this can be adaptive, because it helps us prepare for the future and avoid undesirable situations: it motivates us to buy insurance, plan for our retirement, and save money for our children’s college education. But this same ability to anticipate future events comes at an emotional cost.
The same is true when we start ruminating about past events. Learning from our past failures is adaptive, but ruminating about the past is not.
Worrying about the future and ruminating about the past take us away from the present moment. Rumination and worrying are characteristic features of debilitating anxiety and depression. Anxiety disorders are some of the most common psychiatric conditions, next to mood disorders and substance use problems.
Although treatments for anxiety disorders are reasonably effective, there’s clearly still room for improvement. Modern emotion research provides some concrete and novel methods of enhancing treatment for anxiety and related problems. In this elegant book, a highly accessible and informative text for anybody who struggles with anxiety, David Klemanski and Joshua Curtiss discuss some of these concrete guidelines and encourage you to effectively deal with fear and anxiety while experiencing life as it happens. The authors clearly articulate specific strategies for overcoming fear and anxiety, based on modern emotion research. These strategies include identifying and targeting maladaptive thought processes, enhancing adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and changing maladaptive habits. Mindfulness-based practices take center stage. Mindfulness is difficult to define and measure but relatively easy to practice. These strategies encourage you to pay attention to the present moment without judging it. As a result, you will learn how to live life in the present moment and let go of maladaptive thoughts that are linked to fear and anxiety.
This superb text will guide you through some basic and effective steps: pay attention to your anxiety, confront it, avoid thinking traps, flexibly respond to your emotions, accept your emotions, develop adaptive habits, and abandon maladaptive habits. Embracing these strategies will give you