WHAT IS ANXIETY? - Ballarat Health Services

Anxiety: Frightening Thoughts page 21We may worry that we will appear stupid when we are speaking or doing something in front ofother people, even people who don't know us and are not important. We may convinceourselves that people will think badly of us, and they will never want to be our friends. Wemay feel this way even when our friends and family tell us that we are doing fine.Most of us notice aches and pains and occasional odd sensations in our bodies, but think littleof them, unless the problem continues, or is one that we have been told to report to ourdoctor as soon as possible. But some anxious people may be sure that the occasionalirregularities of their hearts, lungs or bowels mean that they have a fatal disease that mustbe treated immediately, even after their doctor tells them it is nothing to worry about.These worrying thoughts are not usually a realistic view of things, and reassurance fromfriends and professionals seldom makes them go away. In this session we will look at someother strategies that may help reduce these frightening thoughts.ANXIOUS FEELINGS MAYBE MADE WORSE BYTHE WAY WE THINKThinking More RealisticallyThis strategy aims to change the things we say to ourselves before, during and after we getanxious. We will learn to recognise and challenge our unrealistic, frightening thoughts.a) Recognising frightening thoughtsLet us look at the notes on our Anxiety Records. Can anybody see any frightening thoughts inthe column where we have written down the thoughts we had when we were anxious?FRIGHTENING THOUGHTShow realistic? 0 - 10____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________How realistic do we all think these thoughts are? We can try to rate them from 0 to 10. Ascore of 0 means that the thought is absolutely realistic, and 10 means that we think that itis completely unrealistic.Our Anxiety Records may show that very frightening thoughts seem to happen when ouranxiety levels are highest. Of course it is possible that high levels of anxiety lead us to havemore frightening thoughts. But it is also possible that it happens the other way round too --