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Look at the graduated exercise ladder below and decide where you are on it. OCD is an Anxiety disorder and its not your fault that you have it. One day you will achieve them. Finally I tried anxiety management and that helped the most. Many years of my life have been wasted simply because anxiety symptoms were not explained to me. Symptoms can also include increased nervousness, irritability, fatigue or restlessness. Wouldnt it be better to live the life thats right for you? Be honest with yourself, no one else needs to know about it. No. You may have a panic attack if you venture out to the shops, you may feel worse rather than better if you cut down your rituals, you may embarrass yourself in public if you go out into the world. stopping yourself from doing the compulsive rituals (response prevention). Checklist - coping skills for cognitive work In exposure work the coping skills are all about helping you manage your Anxiety so that you get through your goals. We havent changed their words. Another approach is to set aside times for worrying: Worrying allowed on the hour, every hour, for ten minutes. Your brain sends messages back to your body so that it can start the process of healing the damage youve just done to yourself. Many of these are automatic and arise so quickly that we are hardly aware of them. CBT principles are also used by community psychiatric nurses and voluntary agencies to support people with phobias carrying out exposure work. Heres an example for someone with spider phobia: Situation: leafing through magazine, saw photo of large spider. Breathing into and out of your cupped hands has a similar effect. I wasnt able to breathe, I felt I was losing my breath.. Physical action This is particularly good for releasing anger.