Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
An Important Message to Our Readers
Conventions Used in This Book
What You're Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Part I: Detecting and Exposing Anxiety
Part II: Battling Anxiety
Part III: Letting Go of the Battle
Part IV: Zeroing in on Specific Worries
Part V: Helping Others with Anxiety
Part VI: The Part of Tens
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I
Chapter 1: Analyzing and Attacking Anxiety
Anxiety: Everybody's Doing It
Tabulating the Costs of Anxiety
What does anxiety cost you?
Adding up the cost to society
Recognizing the Symptoms of Anxiety
Thinking anxiously
Behaving anxiously
Finding anxiety in your body
Seeking Help for Your Anxiety
Matching symptoms and therapies
Choosing where to start
Finding the right help
Chapter 2: Examining Anxiety: What's Normal, What's Not
Knowing When Anxiety Is a Help and When It's a Hindrance
Presenting the Seven Types of Anxiety
Generalized anxiety disorder: The common cold of anxiety
Social phobia: Avoiding people
Panic disorder: Way beyond everyday anxiety
Agoraphobia: Panic's companion
Specific phobias: Spiders, snakes, airplanes, and other scary things
Post-traumatic stress disorder: Feeling the aftermath
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Over and over and over again
Seeing How Anxiety Differs from Other Disorders
Chapter 3: Sorting Through the Brain and Biology
Examining the Anxious Brain
Seeing how the brain's circuits are connected
Communicating chemicals
Preparing to Fight or Flee
Mimicking Anxiety: Drugs, Diet, and Diseases
Exploring anxiety-mimicking drugs
Ingesting anxiety from your diet
Investigating medical anxiety imposters
Chapter 4: Clearing the Roadblocks to Change
Digging Out the Roots of Anxiety
It's in my genes!
It's how I was raised!
It's the world's fault!
Finding Self-Acceptance
Having Second Thoughts about Change
Deciding to Get the Show on the Road
Arguing with your arguments
Taking baby steps
Watching Worries Come and Go
Following your fears
Writing about your worries
Getting Help from Others
Seeking the right therapies
Seeking the right therapist
Part II
Chapter 5: Becoming a Thought Detective
Distinguishing Thoughts from Feelings
Blocking the blues
Getting in touch with your feelings
Getting in touch with your thoughts
Tracking Your Thoughts, Triggers, and Feelings
Tackling Your Thoughts: Thought Therapy
Weighing the evidence: Thought court
Rethinking risk
Deconstructing worrisome scenarios
Cultivating Calm Thinking
Considering a "friend's" perspective
Creating calm
Affirming affirmations?
Chapter 6: Watching Out for Worry Words
Stacking Sticks into Bonfires of Anxiety
Encountering extremist words
Misrepresenting with all-or-none, black-or-white words
Running into judging words
Turning to victim words
Tracking Your Worry Words
Refuting and Replacing Your Worry Words
Exorcising your extremist words
Disputing all-or-none
Judging the judge
Vanquishing victim words
Chapter 7: Busting Up Your Agitating Assumptions
Understanding Agitating Assumptions
Sizing Up Anxious Schemas
Recognizing schemas
Assessing your agitating assumptions
Coming Down with a Case of Anxious Schemas
Acquiring assumptions in childhood
Shattering your reasonable assumptions
Challenging Those Nasty Assumptions: Running a Cost/Benefit Analysis
Analyzing perfection
Tabulating approval
Reviewing vulnerability
Counting up control
Debating dependency
Challenging your own anxious schemas
Designing Calm, Balanced Assumptions
Tempering perfectionist tendencies
Balancing an approval addict
Balancing vulnerability
Relaxing control
Diminishing dependency
Above All: Be Kind to Yourself!
Chapter 8: Facing Fear One Step at a Time
Exposure: Coming to Grips with Your Fears
Getting ready by relaxing
Understanding your fears
Constructing a staircase of fear
Imagining the worst
Facing your fears (gulp)
Conquering All Types of Fears
Waging war on worry: GAD
Fighting specific and social phobias
Pushing through panic and agoraphobia
Taking on post-traumatic stress disorder
Overriding an obsessive-compulsive disorder
Expecting the Impossible
Chapter 9: Considering Medications and Other Physical Treatment Options
Making Up Your Mind About Medications
The downside of medications
The upside of medications
Understanding Medication Options
Antidepressants
Benzodiazepines
Miscellaneous tranquilizers
Beta blockers
Atypical antipsychotics
Mood stabilizers
A few intriguing medication options
Searching for Supplements
Viva vitamins!
Sifting through the slew of supplements
Stimulating the Brain
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS)
Deep brain stimulation (DBS)
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Part III
Chapter 10: Looking at Lifestyle
Friends and Family — Can't Live with 'em, Can't Live without 'em
Staying connected to others
Delegating for extra time
Just saying "no"
Ready . . . Exorcise!
Don't wait for willpower — Just do it!
Working in your workout
The ABCs of Getting Your Zs
Creating a sleep haven
Following a few relaxing routines
What to do when sleep just won't come
Designing Calm Diets
Enjoying small, frequent portions
Following nutritional common sense
Chapter 11: Relaxation: The Five-Minute Solution
Blowing Anxiety Away
Discovering your natural breathing pattern
Breathing like a baby
Using panic breathing in high-stress situations
Relaxing Your Whole Body
Discovering the progressive muscle technique
Applying Relaxation in Tense Situations
Relaxing through Your Senses
Sounds to soothe the savage beast
Only the nose knows for sure
Massaging away stress
Chapter 12: Creating Calm in Your Imagination
Letting Your Imagination Roam
Imagining touch
Recalling sounds
Remembering tastes
Conjuring up smells
Painting pictures in your mind
Full Sensory Imaging
Relaxing at the beach
A forest fantasy
Customizing Your Own Images
Chapter 13: Mindful Acceptance
Accepting Anxiety? Hey, That's a Switch!
Taking a calm, dispassionate view
Tolerating uncertainty
Being patient with yourself
Letting Go of Ego
Inflating and deflating the self-esteem balloon
Appreciating your imperfections
Connecting with the Here and Now
Making contact with the present
Putting worries about the future to rest
Mindfully meditating
Accepting Mindfulness into Your Life
Savoring Spirituality
Part IV
Chapter 14: Facing a Career Crisis and Financial Woes
Meeting Job Worries Head-On
Shoring up your resume
Finding flexibility in your career view
Considering careers with stability
Keeping the right focus
Taking Stock of Your Resources
Tallying up your financial balance sheet
Knowing your personal assets and liabilities
Committing to a New Game Plan
Setting short-term goals
Planning for the long haul
Chapter 15: Keeping Steady When the World Is Shaking
Assessing Your Risks
Looking at the likelihood of dying from a natural disaster
Tabulating your personal risks
Preparing a Plan for Realistic Worries
Imagining and Dealing with the Worst
Rethinking uncertainty and anxiety
Rethinking your ability to cope
Going right at your worries
Doing Your Part to Improve the World
Helping the environment
Volunteering in disasters
Chapter 16: Staying Healthy
Figuring Out the Connection between Worry and Health
Recalculating the Costs and Benefits of Health Worry
Tabulating Risks of the Modern World
Examining the evolving realities of diseases and treatments
Weighing local versus global health risks
Watching out for exaggerated claims
Taking an Inventory of Your Personal Health
Checking out your lifestyle
Accepting your genetic risks
Designing a Health Action Plan
Chapter 17: Keeping Out of Danger
Evaluating Your Actual, Personal Risks
Maximizing Your Preparedness
Taking charge of personal safety
Avoiding unnecessary risks
Dealing with Trauma
Thinking through what happened
Exposing yourself to the incident
Accepting a Certain Degree of Uncertainty
Choosing to put yourself in high-risk situations
Experiencing danger in everyday places
Part V
Chapter 18: When a Family Member or Friend Suffers from Anxiety
Discovering Whether Your Loved One Suffers from Anxiety
Talking Together about Anxiety
Helping without owning the albatross
Avoiding blame
When help turns into harm
Guiding the Way
Coaching the right way
Looking at a coach in action
Teaming Up against Anxiety
Accepting Anxiety with Love
Chapter 19: Recognizing Anxiety in Kids
Separating Normal from Abnormal
Inspecting the Most Common Childhood Anxiety Disorders
Leaving parents: Separation anxiety disorder
Worrying all the time: Generalized anxiety disorder
Focusing on phobias: Specific phobias
Connecting with others: Social phobia
Anxious repetition: Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Rare anxieties among children
Chapter 20: Helping Kids Conquer Anxiety
Nipping Anxiety in the Bud
Early mastery experiences
Fine-tuning emotions
Inoculating against anxiety
Taking precautions via parenting style
Helping Already Anxious Children
Helping yourself first
Modeling mellow
Leading children through anxiety
Relaxing to reduce anxiety
Exorcizing anxiety through exercise
Getting Help from Others
Who to get help from
What to expect at the first session
What happens in therapy?
Part VI
Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Stop Anxiety Quickly
Breathing Out Your Anxiety
Talking with a Friend
Exercising Aerobically
Soothing the Body
Drinking Tea
Challenging Your Anxious Thinking
Listening to Music
Finding Distractions
Having Sex
Staying with the Moment
Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Deal with Relapse
Expecting Anxiety
Counting the Swallows
Checking Out Why Anxiety Returned
Seeing a Doctor
Revisiting What Worked Before
Doing Something Different
Getting Support
Considering Booster Sessions
Looking at the Stages of Change
Accepting Anxiety
Chapter 23: Ten Signs That You Need Professional Help
Having Suicidal Thoughts or Plans
Feeling Hopeless
Handling Anxiety and Depression
Trying to No Avail
Struggling at Home
Dealing with Major Problems at Work
Suffering from Severe Obsessions or Compulsions
Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Going through Sleepless Nights
Getting High
Finding Help
Appendix: Resources for You
Self-Help Books
Resources to Help Children
Accessing Web Sites to Discover More about Anxiety
Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
by Charles H. Elliott, PhD, and Laura L. Smith, PhD
Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies®
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Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
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