Anxiety sensitivity is “the tendency to respond fearfully to bodily sensations associated with fear and anxiety.” Put simply, it’s “the fear of fear.”
People who are prone to anxiety sensitivity tend to catastrophize, or automatically assume that the worst will happen.
According to authors and clinical psychologists Margo C. Watt, Ph.D, and Sherry H. Stewart, Ph.D, in their excellent book Overcoming the Fear of Fear: How to Reduce Anxiety Sensitivity, they outline a cognitive-behavioral approach to reducing anxiety sensitivity. Here are a few tips you might find helpful.
Changing your Thoughts
The stories we tell ourselves can heighten our anxiety. But the good news is that our stories also can diminish our anxiety. According to the authors, we either turn up or turn down the volume on our physical sensations depending on what we say to ourselves when we’re experiencing these sensations. Here’s how to pinpoint negative thoughts and adjust them.
- Identify dysfunctional thoughts. Knowing the stories you tell yourself will help you figure out how your thoughts are perpetuating your anxiety. To get at these thoughts, think of a recent experience, and zero in on your thoughts.
- Challenge your thinking. The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. They suggest readers treat their thoughts as guesses, not facts. They also recommend de-catastrophizing. In other words, they say “So what?”
- Substitute healthy thoughts. The goal is to replace negative thoughts with realistic, reasonable and helpful thoughts. For instance, if your heart starts to race, and you initially think that you might be having a heart attack, you might say: “It’s unlikely that I’m having a heart attack. This is probably anxiety, and the best thing I can do for myself right now is to breathe and try to relax. I shouldn’t fight my body but should work with it. I can just ride it through.”
Changing Your Behaviors
Another way to reduce anxiety sensitivity is to expose yourself to the physical sensations — a process called interoceptive exposure. According to the authors, the aim is habituation, which “refers to decreased response to a stimulus after repeated presentations.”The main goal in doing exposure exercises is to learn new ways to respond to your own physiological sensations.
Changing Your Lifestyle
Healthy habits also are important for shrinking anxiety sensitivity. Watt and Stewart use the metaphor of our bodies as vehicles. Our bodies work best with nutrition, breathing, regular physical activity, rest and sleep.
Source:
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/03/20/how-to-overcome-being-anxious-about-being-anxious/