3 Anxiety and Panic Coping Skills

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3 Coping Skills for Anxiety and PanicWhen we worry about an event, we focus on an imaginary threat that is not happening in reality. Below are 3 suggestions to address the reactions associated with anxiety and panic.

  1. In most cases, simply taking a few moments to practice some simple relaxation exercises, such as deep breathing, can allow your body to calm down. When we deliberately take slow deep breaths, we are indirectly telling our body that all danger has now passed; as a consequence, our body will stop producing adrenaline and our arousal will cease.To begin, place your hand on your chest. Breathe in and out of your mouth, taking a big sigh, so that you feel your chest moving in and out against your hand. This is chest breathing, a shallow form of breathing that often occurs as a response to stress. Rapid chest breathing quickly gets oxygen to the muscles so you can fight or run away from whatever is stressing you. Heart rate and blood pressure go up, and you feel anxious.Now place your hand on your stomach below your waist. Breathe in your nose like your smelling a flower. Then purse your lips and breathe out your mouth like your blowing at a match. You will feel your stomach move in and out against your hand. This is abdominal breathing or deep breathing, the kind of breathing you did naturally as a baby and still do when you’re asleep or very calm. Slow deep breathing reverses your body’s stress response of anxiety, slows the heart, reduces blood pressure so it is closer to normal and releases endorphins, your body’s natural painkillers.

    Compare how you feel after one minute of chest breathing with how you feel after one minute of abdominal breathing. Take some time to practice deep breathing every day. If you only practice your aim when your in a battle you will get shot. We need to practice before we the panic occurs.
  2. The way we think has a lot to do with the way we feel, so changing your thoughts from a fearful, pessimistic orientation to a calm, positive orientation becomes essential in managing feelings of anxiety and worry. When feeling worried, it is helpful to say the following to yourself:- This is an inconvenience and a disappointment. I have put up with disappointments all my life; I can tolerate this one too.- In order to achieve pleasant results, I may have to do unpleasant things.

    – Any solution using my adult judgment will be good enough to get the job done.
    – I cannot predict the future or prevent things from happening. I can take life as it comes.
    – I’m cooperating to get the job done as best I can.
    – I have the power of choice and can chose and live on my own terms of good enough.
    – I am no more or less loveable then anyone else.
  3. Writing our thoughts and feelings down makes them tangible and concrete before our very eyes. We cannot evaluate abstract thoughts in our mind about our life or about ourselves. However, we can begin to sort them out when we see them in black and white in front of us.To start the journaling process, it maybe useful to ask ourselves focusing questions. By answering these questions we are able to make our internalized, unconscious, unacceptable feelings, conscious and concrete. This allows us to find relief from our conflicting logical and emotional reactions, which helps us to move forward. We can begin by using some focusing questions, such as:- “What is the worst part about it?”

    – “How does that worst part make me feel?”
    – “When else have I felt this way?”
    – “What am I trying achieve?”
    – “What scares me about this?”
    – “How will this affect my life in the long term?”
    – “What would be an ideal outcome?”
    – “What advice would I give to someone else in this situation?”

Source: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/anger/2015/01/3-coping-skills-for-anxiety-and-panic/

Related Online CEU Courses:

Anxiety: Practical Management Techniques is a 4-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that offers a collection of ready-to-use anxiety management tools that can be used in nearly all clinical settings and client diagnoses.

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook is a 4-hour home study course that teaches how to replace stress-promoting habits with mindful ones.

Yoga as Medicine: the Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing is an 8-hour home study CEU course that will correct common misconceptions about yoga and provide a framework for understanding the conditions under which yoga may be beneficial for a variety of health and mental health issues.

Mindfulness: The Healing Power of Compassionate Presence is a 6-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that provides you with an excellent understanding of exactly what mindfulness is, why it works, and how to use it.

Professional Development Resources is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Professional Development Resources maintains responsibility for all programs and content. Professional Development Resources is also approved by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR); the California Board of Behavioral Sciences; the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, Psychology & School Psychology, Dietetics & Nutrition, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy Practice; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs; and by theTexas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists and State Board of Social Worker Examiners.

The Perfect Amount of Stress

By Thea Singer

Stress is a killer and a life force. How can you tell the good from the bad, and too little from too much?

The Perfect Amount of StressYour company’s revenues are shrinking. Your kids need braces—and hundreds of thousands of dollars for college just down the road. Your aging father has landed in the hospital again. And now that idiot driver on your left is swerving into your lane as he yaks on his cell phone. You might just snap.

Stress, when it’s chronic or repeated, does more than unnerve us; it can make us physically sick. It dampens the immune system and dries out the digestive tract, setting the stage for disorders from irritable bowel syndrome to ulcerative colitis. It impairs memory and in extreme cases fuels anxiety. It can even gnaw away at the ends of chromosomes, thereby accelerating cellular aging.

It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that this villain is also—paradoxically—a wellspring of life. Without stress, we’d be as good as dead. We wouldn’t have the gumption to slalom down Whistler’s mountains to Olympic gold, to play Juliet to our Romeo, to ask the boss for a raise, or even to get out of bed.

That’s because stress in appropriate amounts is the very stimulation that keeps us engaged with the world moment to moment.

When the brain perceives a stimulus, the sympathetic nervous system kicks into gear. It tells the adrenal glands to release the first stress hormone, epinephrine (aka adrenaline). Epinephrine dilates the bronchial tubes in the lungs to make space for more oxygen and charges the heart, enabling more blood to push through. It dilates the blood vessels leading away from the heart, too, so that oxygenated blood can flow freely to where it’s needed most: the brain and the muscles, which must be ready to flee or fight.

Next, the hormone norepinephrine spurts from the nerve endings of the sympathetic nervous system. Norepinephrine constricts the veins leading to the heart so returning blood can slam more powerfully into the chamber and exit with even more force. It constricts the arteries leading to the skin, too, to slow down bleeding in the event of an injury.

Finally, the third—and major—stress hormone, cortisol, joins the party, also emanating from the adrenal glands, to mobilize cells’ stored energy and to keep the rations coming for the duration of the stressor. In nonemergency situations, cortisol follows the body’s circadian rhythms: It’s highest in the early morning—time to wake up—and lowest at night.

“Our goal isn’t a life without stress,” Stanford University neurobiologist Robert M. Sapolsky says. “The idea is to have the right amount of stress.” That means stressors that are short-lived and manageable.

Read more: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201203/the-perfect-amount-stress

Related Online CEU Courses:

If only intentions could walk the dog…

It is said that intention is the crux of all actions – that our intentions shape our thoughts, words, and deeds. If the intentions are wholesome, the results will be fruitful and skillful. Conversely, if the intentions are unwholesome, the results will be unfruitful and unskillful. In this way, our minds, through our intentions and thoughts, are the creators of our own happiness and unhappiness.

Read over the following progression a couple of times and take a moment to reflect on it:

  1. Intention shapes our thoughts and words.
  2. Thoughts and words mold our actions.
  3. Thoughts, words, and actions shapes our behaviors.
  4. Behaviors sculpt our bodily expressions.
  5. Bodily expressions fashion our character.
  6. Our character hardens into what we look like.
There’s a saying that by the time people turn fifty, they get the face they deserve.

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook – New Test Only Course

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

CE Credit: 4 Hours (0.4 CEUs)
Target Audience: Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, OTs, MFTs
Learning Level: Introductory


Course Abstract:

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction WorkbookThis CE test is based on the book A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (2010, 224 pages). The book provides a basic introduction to the practice of mindfulness meditation and includes interactive exercises and an audio CD with over 8 hours of guided meditations. The book also includes a description of the biology of stress, the mechanisms of action of mindfulness, research on mindfulness based stress reduction, and yoga exercises for stress. The workbook can be used for conducting mindfulness groups in educational, occupational, and healthcare settings. Course #40-28 | 2011 | 30 posttest questions | This is a test only course (book not included). The book can be purchased through Amazon or another source.

 

Learning Objectives:

1. Define mindfulness and describe several mindfulness practices/techniques
2. Describe the physiological response to stress, and the impact of mindfulness on the body and mind
3. Identify mindfulness and yoga techniques for becoming aware of emotions
4. List mindfulness and yoga techniques for reducing pain, anxiety and stress
5. Describe the role of mindfulness meditation and loving kindness meditation for improving relationships

 

About the Author(s):

Bob Stahl, PhD, directs Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs at Camino Medical Group in Sunnyvale, El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, and Santa Cruz Medical Foundation. He is a long time practitioner of mindfulness meditation, having practiced for over eight years in a Buddhist monastery. Bob has completed training with Jon Kabat-Zinn and is a certified mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher having been certified by UMass Medical Center.

Elisha Goldstein, PhD, is in private practice in West Los Angeles and co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn (New Harbinger, February 2010). He synthesizes the pearls of traditional psychotherapy with a progressive integration of mindfulness to achieve mental and emotional healing. He contends that we have the power to transform our traumas and habitual patterns that keep us stuck in perpetual stress, anxiety, depression, or addiction and step into greater freedom and peace. He offers practical strategies to calm our anxious minds, transform negative emotions and facilitate greater self acceptance, freedom and inner peace

 

Accreditation Statement:

Professional Development Resources is recognized as a provider of continuing education by the following:
AOTA: American Occupational Therapy Association (#3159)
APA: American Psychological Association
ASWB: Association of Social Work Boards (#1046)
CDR: Commission on Dietetic Registration (#PR001)
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NAADAC: National Association of Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselors (#00279)
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