Anxiety: Emotional Regulation

Now that we have successfully identified our current emotions, how can we use them in exercises to manage our anxiety?

One strategy is called Opposite Actions. In this strategy we identify the emotion and then we identify a negative behavior that may result of this emotion. Then we consider the opposite, and consider the positive behavior and what positive emotion we might feel because of this opposite to our current negative feeling. 

Here's an example:

1. Feeling: I am stressed about an exam.
2. Resulting Action: I am pushing off studying for the exam and procastinating.
3. Opposite Action: I will determine what I need to study and make a time schedule to be able to review everything before the exam and start studying.
4. Resulting Feeling: I feel prepared and motivated for this exam.

Take a look and try this worksheet and this worksheet. This strategy allows you to recognize unhealthy behaviors due to our immediate neagative emotions to anxiety, and show us the positive outcome that could come of the situation.

Another exercise we can do is to Pay Attention to Positive Events. 

Stop and Think:

Think about your life this week. Try to think of at least 3 positive things that happened.

Sometimes, it can be very hard for us to think of positive things that happen to us, and we may find it easier to find negative things. This can factor into why we have negative emotions in the first place. Recognizing positives in our life is a skill, and the more we pratice this skill, the better we get at it. Try to end every day with a reflection upon the positive things that happened that day.

Using our abilities to identify positives, we can try to manage our anxiety through a Positive List:

1. Rate your emotions/mood from 1-10
2. Write down the anxiety provoking situation
3. Write as many positive aspects you can think of regarding you or the situation
4. Rate your emotions/mood from 1-10

Here is an example we can use for this activity for something relevant to the pandemic:

1. Mood: 3
2. Situation: I don't understand how to use the video website that my classes are now going to be on for school.
3. List Positives: I still have time until classes start to figure it out, I have friends at school who are going through the same change and might be able to teach me, I am a quick learner and usually adapt well, It's a good thing we are using video for class so I am not exposed to COVID
4. Mood: 8

Often , our anxiety stems from more than one component of anxiety since they are all connected. This worksheet is perfect for those who want to approach their anxiety from an emotional and cognitive perspective. Using a Venn diagram, this exercise asks you to write out your feelings and thoughts and see what matches in the situation to look at things in a healthier, more balanced perspective.