For instance, to change all-or-nothing thinking, write down the two extremes and draw a line between them.

Instead of dreading the bolt from the blue, you can now look back and see how your Anxiety developed in the first place. There will always be some people that dont like aspects of your character, but that doesnt mean youre unlikeable as a person. Some types are more suited to short-term work, with a fixed number of sessions. Hold it and really squeeze your lips together. Here are some suggestions: Take a hot relaxing bath. Read cartoons, in a newspaper or book. Also you may feel sad at the number of tedious things you are now able to do. By reading their stories we hope you can see that Anxiety is an illness that strikes ordinary people. There is an element of risk involved in undertaking recovery work. This decision is complicated by the fact that you are bound to feel a bit daunted at the start of a self-help programme - the journey seems so long, and the ultimate goal of recovery so very unobtainable. I had a phobia of thunderstorms and especially the noise they make which started when I was very young, after a bad experience. Ive been places I never thought Id go - I went to Old Trafford to see the flowers for the Munich memorial. When you first start on exposure work it can be helpful to adopt a range of coping skills. Optimist or Pessimist? They always start with a warm-up session, and at first that is all you should attempt. How can doing more exercise or improving sleep patterns have an effect on my thoughts? Young children can be overwhelmed by strong emotions such as fear or anger. Any vigorous activity counts, as long as it makes you breathe hard - scrub a floor, run up some stairs, swing your arms about. But there is an extra dimension to OCD, which is the link between the obsessions and the compulsions. You can eat the kind of food you like. Im not aware of doing this but I may be subconsciously doing it. On the whole I dont have a negative mindset but I do sometimes overestimate the chances of something bad haping.