How do you change your behavior?As we've said before, CBT requires a lot of tracking and commitment. You have to recognize and track your coping skills to change your behaviors.
Developing a series of practice runs to help you work on your goals and overcome your social anxiety in small, manageable steps is the next step in how you change your behavior. You choose your own experiments based on your biggest fears or triggers, starting with situations that are only a little uncomfortable, and gradually working on harder things as you build self-confidence one small step at a time. You do cognitive restructuring before the practice runs, and practice mindfulness during them. As you get more confident, you will be able to identify safety behaviors or crutches to limit using during your experiments so that you learn more and build more self-confidence. |
How do you React?Coping is another word for Dealing With It. How do you deal with situations that make you anxious?
Do you avoid thinking about situations that make you uncomfortable? Do you ignore the bad grade you got on the test? Do you pretend the fight didn't happen? Do you think about the ugly stain on your shirt that you didn't notice until you got home from the party over and over? Do you avoid going to certain places or doing certain things because it makes you too anxious? Read these negative coping skills and note the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tool if it applies to you: Avoidance coping—also known as avoidant coping, avoidance behaviors, and escape coping—is a form of negative coping in which a person changes their behavior to avoid thinking about, feeling, or doing difficult things. Avoiding stress might seem like a great way to become less stressed, but this isn't necessarily the case. More often than not, confronting a problem or dealing with a stressor is the only way to effectively reduce the stress it causes. CBT Intervention: recognize the behavior, take small steps to gradually face your fears, while also learning relaxation skills. Control- sometimes we resort to controlling strategies to manage our anxiety and feel more secure. Like needing to follow a rigid routine or schedule when we're stressed or anxious in order to feel more in control and less anxious. CBT Intervention: change your routine or schedule in small ways as a form of exposure therapy. Over time, this can help you feel more confident in their ability to adapt to change. Or you can grow up and become a mother one day and realize there's beauty in chaos sometimes but still have daily serious meltdowns! Distraction- this is doing or focusing on things in order to avoid anxious thoughts or feelings, like needing to keep the TV or radio on in the background to avoid the anxious thoughts that pop up during quiet times. CBT Intervention: CBT teaches alternative skills that can be used instead of distraction, including skills to help you interrupt, challenge, and change anxious thoughts into ones that help you feel calmer. Projection Projection involves redirecting anxiety or other emotions outward to another person or situation, like snapping at your sibling because of feeling anxious and on-edge about a big project at school. CBT Interventions: Identify the real trigger or cause of the emotions, and deal with this head-on by examining the specific thoughts and fears feeding into the anxiety. Challenge these thoughts or come up with actionable steps you can take to successfully complete the project. Procrastination Procrastination involves delaying or putting off a task because of anxiety. Like waiting until the night before a big project is due before starting on it. CBT Interventions: identify procrastination patterns, when and where they are most likely to show up, and how to resist urges to procrastinate. Break tasks up into smaller parts that are easier to complete, instead of doing the whole task at once. Noticing your behaviors or actions, like cold symptoms, help you find the right coping skills. Positive Coping Skills help you learn how to turn stressful situations into workable problems. Click on Chill to learn about Strategies for calming down to practice and use In The Moment. Click on Positive Coping Skills to learn more about your Actions, or behaviors, you use to deal with it. |