Creating Calm: 3A Toolkit for Managing Stress and Anxiety - Junior Edition

CREATING CALM 3A Toolkit for Managing Stress and Anxiety Ad Junior Edition

Meg Kapil ma , ccc - s , rcc

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: What is worry?

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CHAPTER 2: Your Foundation

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CHAPTER 3: The Plan for Shrinking Worry

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CHAPTER 4: Calming the Body

26

CHAPTER 5: Strategies for Helpful Thinking

33

CHAPTER 6: The Debrief

46

CHAPTER 7: Planning Ahead

51

CREATING CALM Shrinking Stress and Worry

JUNIOR EDITION

INTRODUCTION Right now, I am pretty sure that you are not a very big fan of worry. You may even really want to get rid of it. So, it’ll probably surprise you that we’re actually not going to get rid of the worry, but instead learn how to make it smaller. We’re even going to learn about how worry is trying to help you by keeping you safe. By the end of this workbook, you might even be friends with your worry, although that’s probably hard to believe right now!

I know how hard it is to deal with worry, how bad it can make you feel, how it makes you afraid to do things. I also know that you’re brave to face the worry, and I know that you’ll really like being able to shrink the size of your worry so it’s much more friendly. I’m really excited for you to be able to do this, and to feel better. So let’s not wait anymore, time to get started!

You’re probably reading this with the help of an adult who you trust, a big person who you feel safe learning with like a parent, a teacher, or a counsellor. You’re probably used to the big people in your life teaching you things, but everything you learn in this workbook will be just as helpful for the big people as for you. This might surprise you but everyone has to deal with worry. Maybe you can even ask the person reading this workbook with you if they have ever felt worried (go ahead…. ask them), I’m sure the answer will be yes! After reading this workbook, you might even be able to teach the big people a few things about how to shrink their own worry.

So, as you’re learning all sorts of ways to help with your worry, I hope that you’ll share this new information with others and help other people around you, big and little, to try some of the strategies for themselves.

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CHAPTER 1

What Is Worry?

“Today is the day that you have to talk to your class about your favourite animal. You were hoping your teacher and your parents would forget and you wouldn’t have to do it. You know lots and lots about your animal, that isn’t the problem. You could talk about your favourite animal all day!

When you think about standing up in front of the class, everyone looking at you, you can hardly remember your name and you really can’t remember what you were going to say. It’s like someone took all of your thoughts and blended them up. It feels harder to breath and you feel a bit sick, your stomach is full on knots, and your hands feel sweaty. You think to yourself “what is wrong with me, why can’t I get it together, everybody else is able to do their speech”. Your teacher and parents tell you it will all work out and that you can do it, except this really really really does not feel true. And most of all, you feel like there is nothing you can do to change how you feel and to deal with the worry. “ You might have the same worry as the example above or a totally different worry, pretty much everybody worries about something. A little bit of worry or stress is normal, and even if we don’t like how it makes us feel, we can handle it. Sometimes worry gets too big, so big that it gets in the way of doing things you want to, like doing a speech at school or going to a birthday party or trying out for a sports team or even going to sleep easily. When worry gets in the way of doing the things we want to, then it is time to do something about it.

This workbook is going to help you do just that! We are going to learn about what worry is and most importantly, we are going make a toolkit just for you so you can shrink your worry and get back to doing all the things you want to!

What is Stress?

Stress is a totally normal response to something that makes you a bit uncomfortable, like a giving a talk in front of your class or trying something new. Stress usually goes away when the thing causing the stress is also gone. A bit of stress can even be helpful, you might perform better in an event or for a school presentation for example with a bit of stress. How your body feels when you’re stressed is a lot like how your body feels when you are worried. You’ll notice that the words stress, worry, and anxiety are often used for the same thing. They’re not exactly the same though. With stress, you usually know what is causing it and it gets better when you take away the cause. Kind of like when you are stressed about a test and you feel better when the test is done. With worry or anxiety, you don’t always know what the cause is, you just feel really worried.

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What is Worry?

Worry and anxiety are different names for the same thing. Worry is often a bit smaller and anxiety is the name that a doctor or psychologist might use for worry that is really big. In this workbook, we’ll help you deal with stress, worry and anxiety.

Worry is a response in our body and our brain that happens when your mind thinks there is some kind of threat or danger. Worry is like a defense system that is turned on to help keep you safe from danger. The problem with worry is that this system is turned on sometimes when there is no actual danger. All the uncomfortable feelings in your body and fearful thoughts would make a lot of sense if you were actually facing real physical danger.

Imagine that you actually come face to face with a tiger (I really hope this doesn’t happen because this would be very scary and dangerous). If this actually happened, you would want your defense system to help you react really fast to keep you safe.

So the defense system that’s responsible for all the unpleasant feelings in your body and the fearful thoughts when you’re worried, is the same system that keeps you safe!

This is why we don’t actually want to get rid of worry completely, because we really need this system so we can deal with real danger. The problem with worry is that your defense system is too good at it’s job, kind of like it is protecting you from tigers that are not actually there. So, what we’ll work on together in this workbook, is retraining your worry so it is not fighting tigers that aren’t there. Instead, you will learn to shrink your worry so it’s a much better size and so it feels way less scary.

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How Do You Notice That Your Worry Is Too Big? Worry is a bit different for everybody. I want to know more about what your worry is like. Here are a few things you might notice when worry is too big:

ACTIONS • You might avoid doing some things or stop doing things you used to enjoy.

• You might have big reactions like running out of a room or throwing something and you don’t feel like you have much control over this.

FEELINGS Fear Worry Frustration Panic Overwhelmed Anger

THINKING • You might have thoughts or images in your mind about not being safe, and things turning our really badly.

SOCIAL

PHYSICAL

• You might want to be by yourself a lot.

• You might also be really hard on yourself.

• Fast and shallow breathing.

• Heart is beating really fast.

• Sweaty palms.

• Face gets flushed.

• Stomach is uncomfortable.

• Fists cleanched.

• Shaking muscles.

The above examples may not be exactly what happens when you are worried, or some of the things might happen to you but not others. While there are similar things that happen when all of us get worried, each of us has our own unique experience of worry. List below the things that you notice about your worry:

ACTIONS

FEELINGS

THINKING

SOCIAL

PHYSICAL

From filling in the chart about your worry, you can see all the different ways worry impacts you.

Now let’s learn more about what worry really is by learning about what happens in your brain and your body when you are worried.

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What Happens in Your Brain When You are Worried?

It is helpful to have some information about how your brain works so you can better understand what is going on when you are worried and also know what to do in order to feel better. The brain is really complex so we will only talk about the parts that are important to understanding worry. The three main parts of the brain we will talk about are the reptile, mammal, and human brain.

HUMAN MAMMAL REPTILE

Reptile Brain The first part of the brain we will talk about is the reptile brain. It is in charge of all kinds of things we don’t think about much like breathing and reflexes. The main job of the reptile brain is survival, it is in charge of everything that keeps you alive and this includes worry. When turned on, this part of your brain signals your body to be ready for danger, and puts your into either fight, flight, or freeze mode to help you deal with the danger.

Flight mode makes you feel like you want to run away or avoid things. Fight mode makes you want to use a big angry voice, maybe throw something, or even put your hands on someone else.

And freeze mode makes you feel a bit numb, frozen, or stuck. Which one of these modes is turned on when you are worried? Do you go into fight, flight, or freeze?

FIGHT

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FLIGHT

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FREEZE

Fight, flight, and freeze and part of you alarm system. Your alarm system is designed to help you deal with danger that might harm your body or physical self, like if you faced a tiger. This is why stress, worry and anxiety make us feel so terrible, like something really bad is going to happen even when it isn’t.

Worry is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable so it gets your attention and you do something to stay safe; like fight, flight, or freeze. For example, if you are worried about talking in front of the class like the example at the beginning, you won’t be physically harmed from doing that, but it sure feels like you will from how your body responds! This is because this part of the brain doesn’t know the difference between what is actually going to hurt your body and something that is a bit uncomfortable, like giving a speech, your body responds the same way.

This part of the brain also works without you knowing it is working and it works really fast.

This is why you often feel like you don’t control your worry. This is also good when there is actual danger. Think of a time when you jumped out the way of something or reacted before you knew what happened, this is a good thing because you stay away from something dangerous (like a hot stove or an approaching vehicle). So, we don’t want to get rid of the alarm system and the worries altogether, just understand and train them a bit better.

Mammal Brain If any of you have pets like dogs or cats (these are mammals like us by the way), you know that your pet has feelings just like you. They are happy when you come home and feed them, and sad when you leave them behind as you leave for the day. They also remember lots of things just like you, my dog mostly remembers where I keep the treats! This part of the brain is mostly in charge of feelings and memory, things we share with mammals which is why it is called the mammal brain. For understanding stress and worry, we are interested in a very important part of the mammal brain, the amygdala. This is a bit hard to say so I will help you: “UH MIG DA LA” (Amygdala) Now that you have that sorted out, I will tell you what the amygdala does and how important it is for worry. The amygdala triggers emotions like worry, fear, and even anger. The amygdala is like a security guard or guard dog. It’s job is constantly scanning within you as well as the world around you in order to be on the lookout for threats.

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Your amygdala is always looking for threats so it can keep you safe. When it finds a threat, it turns on the reptile brain and either the fight, flight or freeze response. Your amygdala collects information about what is a threat from a few places including your senses and what you think: The senses: Your senses are:

TASTE

HEARING

SMELL

TOUCH

VISION

This is helpful when actual physical danger is present. For example, you can remove your hand from a hot stove or jump out of the way of an approaching car without thinking. There is an excellent system and keeps you safe.

An important part of learning to shrink worry will be learning to give the amygdala correct information that you are physically safe, no tigers are jumping out at you right now the amygdala is not always right about what it labels as a threat. And once something is labeled as a threat, the rest of the alarm system is turned on, even if there is no actual danger around.

Thinking: What you think can have seem like a threat to your amygdala, so your alarm system gets turned on. The problem is that your reptile brain gets this information and acts the same way regardless of how real (or physically threatening) the threat is. This is how you can feel the same worry when getting ready for a competition as facing down an attack from an actual tiger. Learning to manage worry sometimes means we need to help your brain get better at noticing what is really dangerous and what is not.

Human Brain The final part of the brain we will talk about is the human brain. The human brain is sometimes called the thinking brain or the professor brain, it is the ‘smart part’. We share this part of the brain with other humans and it is the last part to develop, even growing right into our 20’s. This part of the brain deals with a lot of information and is very helpful for figuring things out at school and when you’re playing. This part of the brain will be very important for being able to ‘train’ the amygdala and the whole alarm system to be a bit less excited about fighting tigers all the time.

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There is a lot to learn about the brain so let’s review some of the information here:

HUMAN Main job: Thinking MAMMAL Main job: Security Guard

(Amygdala)

REPTILE Main job: Survival

(Fight, Flight, Freeze)

Something else you should know about your brain is that we feel good when all three parts of the brain are connected and communicating. When we are worried, the bottom two parts of the brain (reptile and mammal) are too busy or excited and this causes a break in the connection with the top part of the brain (human).

Another way to think about this is that the mammal and reptile brain can be called the downstairs brain and the thinking brain is the upstairs brain (this way of describing the brain is from the book The Whole Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, 2012).

CALM

Upstairs and downstairs brain are connected

WORRY

Upstairs and downstairs brain are NOT connected

Upstairs Brain (thinking)

Downstairs Brain (emotion, worry)

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Upstairs Brain (thinking)

Downstairs Brain (emotion, worry)

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When you are calm, it is like there are stairs between the upstairs and downstairs brain so these two parts are connected and can give information to each other. When you are worried, your downstairs brain takes over and focuses on fighting tigers and saving you from danger. When this happens, there is no connection to the upstairs brain so you are basically not thinking anymore.

This is why when you are worried, you feel like you do not have control. When you are worried, the downstairs brain is in charge and it’s whole job is to focus on survival. We will learn how to shrink the worry by getting the upstairs brain back in charge, to connect the upstairs and downstairs brain again, and we will use your very own toolkit to do this.

Another great way to understand what happens in your brain when you are worried is to use your hand as a model for your brain.

HAND MODEL OF THE BRAIN Human Brain (thinking)

Human Brain (thinking)

Mammal Brain

Mammal Brain

(Amygdala)

(Amygdala)

Reptile Brain

Reptile Brain

(Survival)

CALM

Parts of the brain are connected, the thinking brain is in charge.

(Survival)

WORRY

Parts of the brain are NOT connected, you are not able to reach your thinking brain easily. The reptile brain is in charge.

Adapted from Dr. Daniel Siegel’s Hand Model of the Brain found in Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (Bantam Books, 2010)

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CHAPTER 2

Your Foundation I am excited to teach you how to manage and shrink your worry. I know how hard it is to have to deal with worry, how upsetting it can be, and how much it can interfere with your life. You have been very brave, dealing with your worry as best you can. Facing your worry takes courage and building your own 3A Toolkit to manage it takes a lot of energy. Like any strong and stable building, you really need a solid foundation to be able to do this. In this chapter, we will go over some important ideas that will form your foundation that will keep you steady as you face your worry and learn a new way of managing it.

Supportive People I really want you to have people to help you and support you as you continue to work on managing your worry. When you are struggling with worry, ask for help from a supportive adult in your life or a helping professional such as a counsellor or psychologist. Think about the important people in your life, family members and friends, who are there to help you. I hope that one of these helpful people are reading this workbook with you right now. Worry can sometimes leave you feeling like you are on your own. It really helps to have support, to know that there are people in your corner.

Perhaps even invite the important people in your life to help you work through this workbook and join you in some of the practices and strategies with you. Lots of adults have to deal with worry too, so they will learn things that will help them too! If you are reading this workbook with an adult, maybe ask them if they have ever had to deal with worry.

Helping Hand and High Five Before we tackle the rest of the workbook and learn about the 3A Toolkit and the plan for managing your stress and worry, I want to know a bit more about you and what helps you tackle challenges like worry. Below is an outline of a hand that I call the helping hand and another hand we will call a high five. On each of the fingers of one hand, I want you to write some of the great things about you that are true even when worry is big. On the fingers of the other hand, write down five things that help you to feel better. You can trace your own hand on a piece of paper if you prefer.

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Here is an example of some of the strengths you might write on your helping hand and some things that might help you feel better for your High Five:

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k ab oo

Fa

m

ily

Ti

m

e

Re ad

Play

Humour

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Nat ure

ty Hones

iou Cur

HIGH FIVE

Pet cuddles

B

v ra

y er

ati Cre

vity

sity

HELPING HAND

I want you to think about each of the five strengths you listed on your helping hand. I know you have way more than five strengths but thinking a bit more about these five is a great start. Also, it is often hard for people with a lot of worry or anxiety to know their own strengths so don’t be surprised if is hard to name your strengths. Maybe ask an adult who knows you really well if you are not sure. You can of course name more than five if you want to but please choose at least five to start with.

A strength is more than something you’re good at, it is something about you that is really important. It is a bit like a ‘truth’ for you, and helps you feel strong and steady. Below are the most commonly named character strengths (see www.viacharacter.org for more information). You can choose other strengths if you don’t think these are the best fit for you but these 24 character strengths give you a good place to start. You may not know what all these strengths mean. I think you will find it helpful to talk about these with a helpful adult so you can figure out at least 5 that are most important to you.

wisdom Creativity Curiousity Judgment Love of Learning Perspective

courage Bravery Perseverance Honesty Zest

humanity

transcendence

justice

moderation

Love Kindness SocialIntelligence

Appreciation of Beauty Gratitude Hope Humour Spirituality

Teamwork Fairness Leadership

Forgiveness Humility Prudence Self-Regulation

List each of the five strengths from your helping hand below and consider how each of them helps you. For example, from the helping hand example on the previous page, the strength of curiousity keeps you looking for new learning and keeping an open mind to new experiences. This might have helped you asked questions in class even though you are uncomfortable doing this.

Curiousity is a very helpful strength for learning about the 3A Toolkit for shrinking your worry!

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Strength

How this strength helps you….

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

As we continue to learn about the 3A Toolkit and get better at shrinking worry, remember that these strengths are always here to help you! And, if you need the ideas from your high five to feel a bit better, you have those too because learning to shrink your worry is very hard work.

Positive Emotion Emotions are a kind of information or response that are mostly automatic, which means we don’t completely control them. Emotions are not right or wrong, they just give us information about what something means to us. For example, if we are sad when a friend moves away, that probably means that friend was important to us. Worry is usually considered a negative emotion, even though we need it for survival. This is probably because it doesn’t make us feel very good even though it is really important for us.

When you are learning to do something hard like shrinking your worry, it is helpful to have a lot more positive than negative emotions to help you bounce back when your worry is bothering you.

Here are a few things you can do to grow your positive emotion: Add smiles: Practice smiling at people you don’t always smile at. They will probably feel good about being smiled at and you will also feel a bit better!

Notice the good: Pay attention to good things that happen. These can be very small things that you would not normally notice. For example, if you have a delicious cookie, really notice this and pay close attention to all the tastes and smells and how your feel when you are eating the delicious cookie. This way you are creating more space for the good things that you might not otherwise notice.

Gratitudes: At the end of each day, recall things you are grateful for from that day. Like when you notice the good, the things you are grateful for can be small and concrete. For example, you might say “I’m grateful that is sunny today so my feet are dry”. You might really like to do this with your whole family, perhaps start a gratitude practice or notice the good practice at dinner each day.

Like any new habit or practice, you will have more success with growing positive emotion if you are consistent with doing this every day or as close to this as possible. These practices work well if you can find someone to do it with you. I am excited to see what you grow!

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Mindful Awareness Mindfulness means to notice the moment you are in with no judgment, just notice. You might practice this by noticing how you are breathing, by noticing how your body feels, or by really noticing when you next eat something. Learning to be mindful will help you to be able to notice what you are thinking and what is going on in your body without reacting, kind of like you are watching a movie about yourself. This is very helpful for learning to shrink your worry but it takes lots of practice. Once you learn to do this, it is like your mind is smiling.

What is Important Another challenge with worry is that it can change in the way you act and interact with the world around you. Sometimes this can be challenging as the worry will get in the way of you doing what you really want to, kind of like worry is making the choices for you. Consider what is most important to you. For example, if you like trying new things and being adventurous, worry may get in the way of doing this.

What is important to you?

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How does your worry get in the way of this?

Now that you can see how much better it will be when worry is no longer making choices for you, let’s have a look at the plan for learning to manage and shrink your worry.

As we move through the rest of the workbook and you start to build your 3A Toolkit, remember all the pieces of your foundation that will help you stay steady and strong as you do this challenging work.

Supportive People

Values and Beliefs

Mindful Awareness

FOUNDATION

Character Strengths

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Positive Emotion

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CHAPTER 3

The Plan for Shrinking Worry The problem that worry causes is that you ‘flip your lid’ as the hand model of your brain showed or that your downstairs brain takes over from your upstairs brain (see Chapter 1). Our solution then is to put your lid back on and get the upstairs and downstairs brain connected again. The 3A Toolkit is going to help you do this. There are three sections to the Toolkit:

The 3A Toolkit for Shrinking Stress and Worry 1. Awareness (Collecting Information) 2. Assign A Label (Organizing Information) 3. Action (Responding to the Information) We will be working towards building you your very own 3A Toolkit so you can shrink your worry down to a size that is easier to manage.

3A Toolkit: Awareness Section To solve a problem, you have to collect information about it. This is true for learning to shrink your worry. There are two main categories we need to collect information about: 1. Thinking 2. Body

Thinking What we think has an impact on how we feel and it certainly impacts how worried we feel. With worry, thinking is checked by the downstairs brain for anything that might be a threat. More positive or helpful thinking will let the amygdala and downstairs brain know that all is well, nothing to worry about. Negative or not helpful thinking can be tagged by the downstairs brain as a threat. This is followed by turning on the alarm response and alerting the reptile brain to turn on your flight, fight, or freeze mode.

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Our minds and brains are very busy and we are constantly thinking all day long, some of these thoughts are helpful and other much less so. We tend to notice the less helpful thoughts more than the helpful ones. This helps keep us safe. For example, if we did not pay attention to a thought such as “what is that scary sound over there” we would not be able to stay as safe. Thoughts that are negative tend to stick to us more easily than the positive ones. Negative thoughts are a big part of anxiety so it’s important to work on helpful and healthy thinking.

Examples of negative thoughts include “I can’t do this”, “I can’t handle this”, “this is terrible”.

It is kind of like these kind of thoughts are feeding the worry and making it bigger. There is a very important question to ask when you are trying to figure out if something you are thinking is making your worry bigger. Ask yourself: Is the thought helpful?

If the answer is no, then we know will need to work on more helpful thinking in order to shrink the worry. Noticing what thoughts are not helpful and are possibly fueling your worry is very important. The goal is not to stop these thoughts though, but to be aware of them. When you try and stop thoughts that are not helpful, you end up paying more attention to them and making them seem stronger. For example, try to not think about cupcakes for the next few minutes.

What happens?

You will notice that as soon as you try to not think about cupcakes, you think about them more.

This is the same with worried or not helpful thinking, if you try to not think these thoughts it does not work very well. Instead, just notice the thought and that it is not helpful.

Body Going back to the example at the beginning of this workbook, worry includes changes in your body as well as thinking. When you are worried or you are responding to stress, there is a system in your body called the nervous system that gets you ready to defend yourself.

When you are worried, your nervous system is turned on and changes in your body follow.

Some of the body changes include a fast heartrate, fast breathing, sweating, and stomach discomfort. It is important to know what changes you notice in your body when you are worried so we can help find strategies to help calm down your body.

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Here are some examples of what you might notice when you are worried:

SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM ACTIVATION OBSERVABLE EFFECTS

HIDDEN EFFECTS

Pupils dilate

Brain signals body to be ready to respond to threat

Dry mouth Tense shoulder and neck muscles

Increase in adrenaline for fight or flight

Rapid heart rate

Increase in cortisol

Rapid and shallow breathing to divert oxygen to muscles

Liver releases glucose to fuel muscles

Increase in blood pressure

Sweating

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Consider what changes you notice in your body when you are worried. Write on the body shape below any places that you notice the body changes from worry in your own body. For some of you it might be a tight feeling in your stomach, for others it might be fast breathing, other people might notice tight muscles or sweating. Make a note below of what are the clues for you in the form of body changes that worry is getting too big and will need some shrinking:

Now that you know what to look for in terms of thinking that is not helpful and signs of body changes, you have completed the Awareness section, you have collected important information about your worry. Now we will move on to Assign a Label section.

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3A Toolkit: Assign A Label Section You have now collected information about what you are thinking and what you notice about your body when you are worried. Now it is time to start shrinking the worry. The first step is to organize the thinking and body information you noticed by choosing a feeling label. For example, when you notice the not helpful thinking, fast breathing, and sweaty palms that are part of your worry, simply say “I feel anxious” or “that is my anxiety acting up” or “that is just my anxiety”. You can practice this by naming or labeling what you are feeling. When you do this, you turn the volume down on your amygdala (remember that this is your security guard) just a little bit. This simple strategy is very helpful in starting you on your way to being able to manage your stress and worry and a very important step before moving to the action strategies.

You don’t have to wait until you are feeling worried to Name It to Tame It (Siegel & Bryson, 2012). Practice naming all sorts of feeling to get lots of practice. What label would you give to these feeling faces? There is no right or wrong answer, what matters is that you use the feeling label that makes sense to you.

I feel _____________________________________________________

I feel _____________________________________________________

I feel _____________________________________________________

I feel _____________________________________________________

I feel _____________________________________________________

I feel _____________________________________________________

It is also really helpful to get to know your worry a bit better. Remember that we are not trying to totally get rid of your worry, we need it to survive. We just need to retrain your worry and shrink how big it gets. By the end of this workbook, you are going to make friends with worry, even if that is hard to believe right now. To get to know your worry a bit better, and make friends with it

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over time, let’s imagine that worry is some kind of creature. It might be a monster, a dragon, a kind of person, it is up to you what shape and colour your worry is. Try drawing how you imagine your worry to be in the space below and perhaps give your worry a name:

By the end of the workbook, once you have built your toolkit to shrink your worry, you worry will be much smaller and friendlier. Let’s draw another version of what your worry will look like after you have finished learning how to shrink it:

I am really looking forward to when you will be friends with the small and much nicer version of your worry!

Let’s get started right away on learning how to shrink your worry into the friendly version. I will explain how we will do this in the next section that tells you about the action phase of the toolkit.

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3A Toolkit: Action Section The final section of the 3A Toolkit is the Action section. Once you have collected information about your thinking and what you notice about your body in the Awareness section, organized the information by giving it a feeling label in the Assign A Label section, you are ready to match strategies that you will learn about in the Action section with what you have found.

In the Action section, you will have two buckets of strategies that you will fill up to help you shrink your worry. The strategy buckets are: 1. Body Calming 2. Helpful Thinking

Helpful Thinking Bucket

Body Calming Bucket

We fill up these buckets of strategies in the next two chapters on Strategies for Body Calming and Strategies for Helpful Thinking. For now, here is the 3A Toolkit plan for shrinking worry.

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THE WORRY SHRINKING PLAN Awareness • Body Activation • Thinking

Assign A Label

Action • Body Calming • Helpful Thinking

And when you are finished, you will have your very own 3A Toolkit so you are able to shrink your worry down to the friendly version whenever you need to. Here is a blank 3A Toolkit that we will fill in as we continue.

You can now fill in the not helpful thinking you notice when you are worried as well as what you notice about your body when you’re worried in the Awareness section. You can also practice naming how you feel in the Assessment section. In the next couple of chapters, you will learn more about what you will fill in for the Action section.

3A TOOLKIT AWARENESS

ASSIGN A LABEL

(collecting information)

(organizing information)

THINKING What are the not helpful thoughts?

What do you feel?

BODY What body changes do you notice?

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ACTION

(responding to information) In the next chapters we will fill up your helpful thinking and body calming strategy buckets.

Practice One more thing before we start to fill up your strategy buckets for body calming and helpful thinking, you will need to practice all of the strategies before you can use them easily! This is really important, to learn anything new, you need a lot of practice. Think about when you learn something new in math class at school or a new skill in whatever sport you play, or a new technique in a video game. You are not able to do the new thing well the first time but after lots of practice, you will do it better. This is the same with strategies for shrinking worry. You will need to practice them before they work well. In a way, you have been practicing being worried without meaning too, you are really good at being worried! So, to learn to shrink worry, you will need to practice and it will take some time.

Summary So far in this workbook, we have gone over the 3A Toolkit approach for shrinking worry including the Awareness, Assign A Label and Action sections. In the next chapters, you will learn strategies to have helpful thinking and how to calm the body, filling up your two buckets of strategies so you can shrink your worry. I will teach you how to calm your body first and then have helpful thinking after that. But, if you want to learn about your thinking before learning how to calm your body, you can read the thinking chapter first. Whatever order you learn about the strategies, just know that you will need to be able to use strategies from both the thinking and the body buckets to shrink your worry.

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CHAPTER 4

Calming the Body Being aware of how your body responds to stress and worry is very important. It is also important to know that different types of strategies work for different levels of body activation. For example, if you are very worried, breathing exercises do not always work well and may even make your worry bigger.

If you are at a medium to high level of worry, try a strategy that involves more movement. You can use a scale of your choice to show how much worry you notice in your body, in the sample below I have a scale with 1 to 5 representing low to middle levels of worry and 5 to 10 for high levels of worry. It might help to think about how much worry is in your body as your volume. When are feeling worried, we need to turn down the volume in your body.

Breathing and muscle relaxation will be work in the low to medium range (0 to 5 on the sample scale) while moving your body will work better in the high range. I have had many people tell me that breathing doesn’t work for them and makes their worry worse. Usually this is because they have tried to use breathing strategies when they are very very worried and their body is very very full of worry. There are many different breathing and body calming activities. I will outline only a few of them here. I encourage you to add your own favourites to the list.

Below, I will share some ideas of strategies that will help you to turn down the volume in your body. Most important is to find body calming strategies that work for you. You must practice these, starting off by practicing them when you are already calm, so that you can learn to use them when you are worried. You will need to practice for a few weeks before you are able to use the strategies really well. Also, keep in mind that everyone is different and you need to find the strategy that works for you.

Keep practicing until you find what works best in your 3A Toolkit! Before we get to the strategies, consider what kind of stressors or situations correspond with where you end up in terms of the amount of worry you notice in your body, which we are calling your volume, where 10 is very high (e.g. panic) and 0 is very low (e.g. asleep).

Write down a few of the situations and events that tend to lead to lots of worry for you and some of the situations and events that lead to a little bit of worry for you. Imagine that the number 0 to 10 represents how full of worry your body is (the volume) with between 0 and 5 being a low to middle level of worry and 5 to 10 being a high level of worry. The body calming strategies will help you turn down the volume in your body.

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10

5

HOW MUCH WORRY (VOLUME) IS IN YOUR BODY? STRESSORS OR SITUATION

STRESSORS OR SITUATION

0

It is important to notice how full of worry your body is (the volume) so you can match the right strategy to the volume. Below are some examples if strategies the match to the level of activation and they are explained in more detail after that.

BODY CALMING: MATCH THE STRATEGY TO THE VOLUME IN YOUR BODY 10

STRATEGIES FOR MEDIUM TO HIGH VOLUME Walking, running, sport or exercise of your choice.

Movements using both sides of your body that are slow and rhythmic (like the butterfly hug).

Shaking

5

STRATEGIES FOR LOW TO MIDDLE VOLUME Orienting or noticing where you are Breathing practice with a long breath out Yoga and mindfulness Muscle relaxation

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Body Calming Strategies for Low to Medium Level of Activation Breathing There are many different breathing exercises. For managing high activation such as anxiety, the general principle is to focus on a longer exhale and using the diaphragm. It can be helpful to go through even breathing, breathing with a longer exhale, and breathing with a longer inhale to increase your awareness of your breathing patterns. A longer inhale is usually more activating.

Figure 8 breathing Draw a figure 8 on the back of your hand. If you do not want pen on their hand, they can trace the shape with their finger. Trace the figure 8 with your finger, exhale as you trace the curve of the 8 and pause and inhale as you reach the center where the lines intersect. I find this breathing exercise helpful as it makes it easy to focus on the exhale, it brings your attention to the present moment, and the touch of your finger on your skin is soothing. I usually practice this for at least one minute a day. It is important to practice these new skills when you are not anxious so that you can use them effectively when you are.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation Progressive muscle relaxation is an established practice and many different scripts and protocols exist for this practice. I will leave it to you to find your favourite and there are many options available with a quick search online. The key principle of this practice is to move through different regions of the body and tense one region at a time and bring your full awareness to the experience, then relax the same body region for about twice as long as you were tense for. In this way, you develop awareness of where you hold tension in your body and become capable of relaxing when you set your intention and attention to do so. An example of body regions you may choose to focus on when tensing and then releasing your muscles are: right arm, left arm, face and head, neck and shoulders, mid-section, right leg, left leg. Once tensing and releasing your muscles in those regions, finish the practice with a body scan to see if any tension remains.

Orienting Orienting is another common and widely used practice. Orienting is a way of bringing attention to the present moment and providing the brain with information that you are safe in this moment.

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There are different orienting practices also and I suggest finding one that is a good fit for you. A very simple practice is to simply name objects that you see in the space around you. This gives the amygdala, the security guard, information that there is in fact no physical threat present so it will settle down a bit. A longer orienting practice that I find more effective is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. In this practice, the client names 5 things they see, hear, and feel. This is followed by 4 then 3 then 2 then 1 thing they see, hear, and feel. This practice engages multiple senses to provide the amygdala with accurate information about safety, thus providing down regulation of the amygdala and nervous system.

Mindfulness Along with being critical for the Awareness and Assessment phases, mindfulness is also linked to improved neural integration and has been shown to be correlated with reduction in anxiety, among other positive results. There are many App’s available also that support a regular mindfulness practice.

Body Calming Strategies for High Levels of Activation As previously mentioned, breathing often is not effective for high levels of activation. For high levels of activation, regulation strategies involving movement are more effective. There are many different ways you can incorporate movement strategies and I suggest using activities that you are interested in such as sports, yoga, and dance. Just going for a walk can also be helpful. What is important is to come up with movement that you like and will actually use. Other movement approaches for when you are not able to leave the room include the following (not an exhaustive list): Finger Pushups Press the fingers tips of both hands together, then slowly and intentionally lift each pair of fingers away from each other and then press them back together. Continue this way with each pair of fingers for as long as needed.

Bilateral Foot Movements This exercise works well when you are seated and not able to get up and walk. Slowly and intentionally lift the toes and ball of one foot keeping the heel on the ground, and then follow the same movement with the other foot and continue as needed. Keep the movement slow and measured as quick movements may increase the level of activation.

Butterfly or Bear Hug Place each hand on the opposite arm in a gentle self-embrace using the amount of pressure that feels soothing. Then alternate squeezing one side and then then other. Some people like a gentle embrace (butterfly hug) and others prefer much firmer contact (bear hug).

Shaking Engage in rigorous shaking of your whole body for about a minute. You will notice partway through this practice that you really want to stop. This lets you know your ‘brakes’ are starting to work.

Once the time is up, allow yourself to rest, feeling your relaxed muscles.

Practice, Practice, Practice….

As I mentioned before, whichever strategy you think will work for you, you will need to practice it.

Perhaps choose a strategy from the low to middle volume section and another one for the higher levels and practice those for a week at least and see how they work for you. You usually need about three weeks to start to be really good at something new. If you find a strategy doesn’t work for you

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or you don’t like it, try another one. There will be something that works for you but you may need to try a few things before you find the right match. And remember, match the strategy with how much volume you notice in your body. Otherwise, even the right strategy won’t work if you use it for the wrong volume. Breathing is a good example of this. Breathing is wonderful for calming down the body. But, it does not always work well when you are really really worried (your volume is really really high), some people find it even makes them feel worse. This doesn’t mean that breathing doesn’t work, it just means you need to use it at the right time. Enjoy your practice and know that you are getting better at shrinking your worry every time you practice!

Now that you have learned a few strategies to calm your body down when you feel anxious, what strategy will you use when you notice a small or middle amount of worry? How will you practice this every day?

What about when you notice lots of worry, what movement strategies will you try to calm down your body? How will you practice this?

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Remember to practice these body calming practices when you are calm so you can learn them really well. It is hard to try a new strategy when you are worried, it will be much easier if you practice alot while you are calm. You might need to try a few different ones until you find your favourite.

Let’s now add what you’ve learned about body calming to your 3A Toolkit. Here is an example of what you could put in a body calming bucket of strategies:

Body Calming

A bit worried

A lot worried

Breathing

Movement

Orienting

Shaking

Butterfly Hug What are your favourite body calming strategies that will go in your bucket of strategies?

Body Calming

A bit worried

A lot worried

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Now let’s add these body calming strategies to your 3A Toolkit:

3A TOOLKIT AWARENESS

ASSIGN A LABEL

(collecting information)

(organizing information)

THINKING What are the not helpful thoughts?

What do you feel?

ACTION

(responding to information) What strategies will go in your bucket of body calming strategies?

A bit worried:

BODY What do you notice?

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A lot worried:

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CHAPTER 5

Strategies for Helpful Thinking From the Awareness section of the 3A Toolkit, we have already noticed thinking that is not helpful and is probably fueling the worry. In this chapter, we will work on what to do after we have noticed thinking that is not helpful. Basically, we need to work on creating thinking that is helpful!

There are two categories of helpful thinking that you will learn about: 1. Messages of safety 2. Specific helpful thinking Before we explore these two categories of helpful thinking in more detail, I want to let you know it does not work very well to try and stop the unhelpful thoughts. Instead, this brings your attention to them even more and tends to grow them even bigger.

Remember the example from before, if I said to you, “I don’t want you to think about cupcakes”, what do you think about?

That’s right….cupcakes!! Simply notice the not helpful thinking, label it as not helpful, and shift your focus and energy on helpful thinking such as Messages of safety and Specific helpful thinking.

Messages of Safety From the Awareness chapter, we know that when we are worried and ‘flip our lid’, our brain is basically fighting tigers and ‘thinks’ that we are in terrible physical danger, even when we are not. So, an important part of learning how to have helpful thinking that will shrink your worry is to give your brain the message that you are safe.

You have started to do this in the body calming section, these strategies help you to feel safe in your body. One really useful strategy for giving your brain the information that you are safe is orienting (check Chapter 3: Strategies for Body Calming for a description). With orienting, you are using your senses to give your brain the correct information that you are safe and not being attacked by tigers.

You can add another layer of calm and shrink the worry a bit more by giving yourself and your downstairs brain messages that you are safe. You can use any messages that reminds you that you are safe. Here are some examples: “I am safe” “There are no tigers here”

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“It is just my worry that is making me feel like this, I am safe” “I can handle this” “This feeling will pass soon” What are some other messages of safety that will help shrink your worry?

Choose a couple of messages of safety that will work best for you and be ready to use these to shrink your worry next time it is too big. You can use the messages of safety anytime you are worried although it is easier to use any thinking strategy when your activation level is not quite as high. If your worry is really big, then you will have ‘flipped your lid’ and the harder it will be to think at all. So try to use the messages of safety as soon as you notice your worry is getting too big.

You can even practice using them when you are feeling good, it is always easier to practice helpful thinking when you are already calm.

Sometimes, you will have some not helpful thoughts that you want to deal with more directly.

For these thoughts, we will work on how to create specific helpful thinking.

Specific Helpful Thinking Growing helpful thinking takes practice as it is not just a case of using the opposite thought.

The opposite is sometimes too far from the not helpful thought so it is too hard to believe. For example, if you are thinking to yourself when you are about to give a presentation in class “I’m going to mess up”, then the opposite thought is something like “I’m going to be amazing”. While this is totally possible, it will be hard for you to believe when you are worried because that is not how you feel in that moment.

Sometimes the helpful thoughts are not even related to the not helpful thought. Helpful thoughts have these parts to them:

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• They are about the present and not the future • Focus on what you are good at or capable of doing • Focus on what you can influence For example, if your not helpful thought is “I can’t do this” when you think about a performance coming up, then thinking “I will be amazing” will not be believable as there is too much of a gap between the current thought and the more helpful one. Instead, to try something like “I can get started” (present focus), “I have the training and practice to do this” (what you are capable of), and “I have practiced a lot and I will do the best I can” (what you can influence).

It can be really hard to learn how to turn not helpful thoughts into helpful ones, definitely ask the adults in your life to help you and they may also need to practice this for themselves!

More Thinking About Thinking We have talked about how thinking, especially thinking that is negative or not very helpful, can be assessed by the amygdala as a threat and grow your worry. We also talked about adding messages of safety help the reptile brain know you are actually safe and how to turn not helpful thoughts into helpful thoughts.

Let’s try this out with your very own thoughts that are not helpful. I will give you a few examples of not helpful thinking on the left. On the right, I will show you a few examples of thinking that is more helpful.

Use the blank spaces to practice turning your own not helpful thoughts into helpful thoughts.

First, write down a not helpful thought on the left, then cross it out. Next, with the help of an adult make a new helpful thought.

Remember that the helpful thought may not be the opposite of the not helpful one, or even about the same thing at all, but it will include the building blocks of helpful thinking (present moment focus, focus on capability and what you can influence). Once you have some examples of helpful thoughts, you may want to keep these with you so you can remember them when needed.

With lots of practice, you will get better and better and making the helpful thoughts.

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UNHELPFUL THOUGHT

HELPFUL THOUGHT (present moment focus, focus on capability, focus on what you can influence)

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I’m an idiot

I have worked hard on this presentation and will focus on what I know

I can’t do this

I will get through this and learn from any mistakes that I make

I will never get better

I am working on managing my anxiety better and will practice my helpful thinking as I do this presentation

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It really does take a lot of practice to notice not helpful thinking and then make more helpful thinking. It is also important to know that negative or not helpful thinking, which is common with worry, tends to be more ‘heavy’ than helpful thinking.

A good way to practice this is to write down a not helpful thought in the middle of a piece of paper. Then layer on top of this about 5 or 6 helpful thought cards until the not helpful thought is covered up completely. This show you that you need many more layers of helpful thought to balance out a not helpful one.

Not Helpful Thought Very HEAVY

Helpful Thoughts Need 3 to 5 times as many to offset the Unhelpful thoughts

Here are some examples of Not Helpful thoughts that are very common and act as fuel to grow the worry.

“I can’t do it” “I am all alone” “ I will never figure this out” “ Something bad will happen” “Everyone will laugh at me” “I need this to be perfect or….”

Practice adding layers and layers of helpful thoughts by writing one of the examples above of not helpful thoughts in the middle of a piece of paper. Then use the cards below (you can print them and cut them up) as examples of helpful thoughts and layer on at least 5 helpful thought cards or keep going until you feel you have balanced out the thoughts and the helpful ones are ‘heavier’ or ‘stronger’ the not helpful one. You will need to figure out for yourself how many helpful thoughts are needed to balance out a not helpful thought and each not helpful thought will have a different weight that is unique for you.

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Helpful Thought Cards:

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I am safe

This feeling will pass soon

There are no tigers here

I am trying

I can handle this

I am doing my best

I can figure this out

I am kind

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I can find somebody to help

I am a good friend

I can remember my helping hand

I am not able to do this YET

That is just my worry, it is not true

I have practiced and prepared

Everyone wants me to do well

I am proud of how hard I have worked

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My worry is Pink fluffy unicorns I am learning making up stories dancing on again rainbows

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I am enough

I am creative

This is a journey

I am learning

There is no right way

This won’t define me

I love that I am different

I am loved

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Example of How to Layer Helpful Thoughts Over Not Helpful Thoughts

My worry is making up stories again

That is just my worry, it is not true

I am safe

Something bad will happen There are no tigers here

I can handle this

This feeling will pass soon

Keep practicing this process of layering helpful thoughts over not helpful ones with your own not helpful thoughts. You really need to practice this often to be able to notice your not helpful thoughts, to be able to focus on helpful thoughts, and to shrink your worry.

The Content Trap Sometimes you will feel like you are stuck thinking about the not helpful thoughts, kind of like you’re going in circles. You may do this with yourself or other people my try to reason with you’re the story your worry is telling. For example, imagine you were speaking with the person in the example about public speaking anxiety. You might say to them, “don’t be silly, you’ll do fine in your presentation”. They will likely not believe you because they do not feel fine in this moment. They may reply with something like “….yeah but I know I will mess up because it happened before”. So, you tell them “you have prepared well and know the material” and they again respond with “yeah but that doesn’t matter, I always mess up”. You can see where this is going, in circles!

In the example above, the person is stuck in the story the worry is telling. Instead, try to look at the worry as separate from the story and use the 3A Toolkit approach to notice, name, and shrink the worry.

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For example, working through the 3 A’s:

AWARENESS

Thinking – notice the not helpful thinking Body – what do you notice about your body

ASSIGN A LABEL

• Name the anxiety • “that is just my worry”or “I feel worried”

ACTION

Thinking – focus on more helpful thinking or messages of safety Body – calm down the body using your favourite body calming strategy

Think about a time when you were worried. What were some of the not helpful thoughts that helped grow the worry? There might even be a few thoughts together, kind of like the worry is telling a story. What is the story that your worry is telling?

Once you are aware of the story that your worry is telling you, you can try and make a new story that is way more helpful. For example, with our example of public speaking in mind, this is a more helpful story: “I have been dealing with worry about class presentation for a long time but I am now ready to learn about how to shrink my worry and work on being more comfortable with presentation. I know this will be hard and I won’t always be able to do it well, but I know I am trying hard and I will learn and improve. I am proud of myself for not giving up and avoiding presentations altogether, even though some days this seems easier. I think I will be able to try more new things, which I want to be able to do, when I get even better at managing my worry”.

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What is a more helpful story you can tell about your worry?

Now that you know a bit more about helpful and not helpful thoughts, here is an example of what a bucket of helpful thinking strategies might look like:

Helpful Thinking Bucket

Messages of safety

Specific helpful thoughts

I am safe, I can do this, there are no I will figure it tigers here, out, I have I can handle practised this, worry is a lot. making things up

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What will you put in your helpful thinking bucket?

Helpful Thinking Bucket

Messages of safety

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Specific helpful thoughts

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3A TOOLKIT AWARENESS

ASSIGN A LABEL

(collecting information)

(organizing information)

THINKING What are the not helpful thoughts?

What do you feel?

BODY What do you notice?

ACTION

(responding to information) Helpful Thinking: What will you have in your helpful thinking bucket?

Body: What body calming strategies will you use?

Now you have your very own 3A Toolkit to help you shrink your worries. Congratulations on your hard work so far! Your worry is probably already a bit smaller from the work you have done on growing your helpful thinking and calming your body. Maybe, you are even starting to see your worry as being a bit smaller and friendlier than you did at the beginning. You now know that your worry is really trying to keep you safe. I have a few more very important things to teach you so we can make your worry even smaller. Let’s keep going!

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CHAPTER 6 The Debrief

It will take time to learn to shrink your worry, and lots of practice. While you are building your own 3A Toolkit that helps you to do this, you will still have moments when your worry feels too big. You will have a very very hard time using the strategies you have learned when you are really worried and you have ‘flipped your lid’ and the downstairs brain is in charge. It is pretty normal to not always be able to use the strategies when you are worried, it takes lots of practice!

But, lots of learning can happens later, once you’re more calm. Once you’re more calm, you can think about the worry and wonder what you would do differently next time. This is called ‘The Debrief’. It’s really helpful to involve a supportive adult to help you with this also. How long it will take you to return to being calm and alert will be different for everyone, take as long as you need. When you feel like being close with other people, this lets you know you are likely ready to debrief a big worry. This is another reason why it can be really helpful to have someone help you with this process. It is also extra important that your supportive adult is also calm, you can only do a debrief when both of you are calm.

In a debrief, consider what you noticed (Awareness), generate a label (Assign a Label) and what you would do differently next time (Action) in terms of helpful thinking and body calming. After this, imagine that you rewind what happened back to when you first noticed being worried. Then go through the Awareness, Assign a Label, and Action phases, but this time with the new ending where you imagine you have successfully shrunk your worry. It is kind of like you get to write a new ending for your worry story, a new ending where you shrink your worry!

So, even if you are not able to always manage and shrink your worry as it is happening, you always have the chance to do a rewind and debrief later. Try and do a debrief often, this really is an excellent way to improve your ability to shrink your worry.

To start with, choose a worry that is not too big or upsetting for your first debrief practice. Just by remembering the of worry, you will sometimes feel like your worry is getting bigger. This is why it works so well to use the debrief to write a new ending and consider a different outcome for the worry and also why it is important to start with a small worry in the beginning.

Here are some tips for doing the debrief: • Work through the 3 A’s either by drawing what happened, talking it through with someone, or thinking about it on your own.

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Awareness • What did you notice? o Thinking • Was it helpful? o Body • What did you notice?

• What is your level of activation (your volume)?

Assign A Label • What were you feeling?

• What label will you use for this?

Action • What worked? o Helpful thinking o Body calming • What can you do differently next time? o Helpful thinking o Body calming Let’s try out the debrief using the prompts above. Choose a recent experience when you felt anxious and consider the following: Here is an example of what might be included in a debrief:

AWARENESS

ASSIGN A LABEL

ACTION

Thinking

Label It

Helpful Thinking

• “This is going to be a disaster” • Your thoughts are jumbled and not helpful • Notice these thoughts are not helpful

“That’s just my anxiety”

• Messages of safety e.g. “This feeling will pass”, “I am safe”, “there are no tigers here” • Helpful thinking: e.g. “I prepared well for the presentation and will do the best I can”

Body • Heart is racing, trouble catching your breath • Assess level of activation (your volume)

Body Calming For low to medium level of activation try using your breath to lengthen your exhale and slow your breathing down. For higher levels of activation, use slow movement such as walking

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Once you have figured out what is important in the Awareness, Assign A Label, and Action categories for the debrief, rewind the worry in your mind and run through it again as if it was a movie. This time, use the new learning from your debrief to visualize how you would shrink your worry, like you have created a new ending.

Practice rewinding and replaying the worry with the new learning from your 3A Toolkit several times until it feels comfortable. You can use this 3A Toolkit approach for the debrief every time you feel like your worry is too big.

Some people find it helpful to draw what happened. If this is you, I have included a sample of a comic strip version of a debrief followed by an example of what this looks like when it is complete.

Try and practice the debrief as often as you can, the more you do this, the better you will get at shrinking your worry.

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3A TOOLKIT COMIC DEBRIEF EXAMPLE I know my worry is acting up when:

AWARENESS How do I know worry?

Is too big?

THOUGHTS & IMAGES Are they helpful?

I keep thinking something terrible will happen during my presentation and I will make a fool of myself.

BODY What is my level of activation?

I feel nauseous and like my stomach is in knots. My heart is pounding and my hands are sweaty.

ASSIGN A LABEL What am I feeling?

Then I said, “That’s just my worry.”

I feel worried (Name It to Tame It)

I know I can shrink my worry by :

HELPFUL THINKING

BODY CALMING

ACTION How do I shrink worry?

“I am safe” “My worry is making up stories again” “I have practiced a lot and know the presentation material really well” “I will do my best” “People want me to do well” “I will survive even if I make a mistake

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Deep breaths

Butterfly hug

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3A TOOLKIT COMIC DEBRIEF EXAMPLE I know my____________________________________ is acting up when:

BODY What is my level of activation?

AWARENESS How do I know worry?

Is too big?

THOUGHTS & IMAGES Are they helpful?

Then I said, “That’s just my___________________________________”

ASSIGN A LABEL What am I feeling?

I know I can shrink my _______________________________ by :

ACTION How do I shrink worry?

HELPFUL THINKING

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BODY CALMING

CHAPTER 7

Planning Ahead We have now gone over the 3A Toolkit for shrinking worry and we will now finish putting together your personal 3A Toolkit that highlight the strategies that are most helpful for you. You have already been thinking about what works for you by noticing your own experience of worry (Awareness), you have learned to label this (Assign a Label), and have been practicing helpful thinking and body calming strategies to shrink your worry (Action).

You have also learned that even when you are not able to shrink your worry in the moment, you can still learn a lot later on when you are calm by going through the debrief. By continuing to practice working on the Awareness, Assessment, and Action parts of the 3A Toolkit, you will get better and better at shrinking your worry.

Planning Ahead Now you have a good understanding of worry and how to shrink it, and your own 3A Toolkit for managing worry. Consider how you can make time to practice the strategies that are working for you.

Consider the time of day that works best for practice, reminders, and perhaps involving a supportive friend or family member to practice with you. Remember to use the debrief process to rewind times when worry was too big, and consider the strategies you want to do differently next time.

What strategies will you practice most often and when?

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On the next couple of pages, there is the sample 3A Toolkit to review the approach and a blank 3A Toolkit for you to complete for yourself. I am grateful to be able to share this approach with you and wish you all the best as you learn to manage your stress and anxiety.

What You Can and Cannot Influence It is really helpful to note the difference between all the things you can influence and all the things you cannot. Putting energy, conscious or not, into factors that are outside of your influence can really drain your resources which is not helpful for managing stress and anxiety well. You certainly may feel sadness, loss, anger and many other things about aspects of your life that are outside of your influence. Notice the feeling as it is already there, and treat yourself with kindness and compassion as you care for the feeling and yourself. And follow this up with shifting your energy and attention to aspects of your life that you are able to influence. Below is a simple diagram to help you explore some of the things in your life that you can influence and some that you cannot.

A few examples are listed to get you started but you will want to add many more of your own.

WHAT I CAN NOT INFLUENCE What other people think What other people do What other people say Past mistakes Weather Height

WHAT I CAN INFLUENCE My response to stress and anxiety Healthy habits Being kind Working hard Asking for help

Healthy Habits 52

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Being healthy and being able to shrink your worry involves keeping a balance between things to are important to your body and brain. The following are examples of things to think about that go along with all the other things you have learned in the workbook. Have a look at each of these and decide if you can make any changes so build healthier habits.

Sleep We need adequate and regular sleep in order for our brains and bodies to recover and have enough resources to deal with challenges. Sleep also helps us consolidate learning.

Exercise We need exercise for both our physical and mental health. Consider your exercise habits and what kind of exercise helps you to feel better.

Social We are social creatures and benefit from quality interactions with other people, in person if possible. This helps us feel supported and resourced in order to tackle the challenges of our day.

Play At all ages, we benefit from being creative and trying new things. Consider what you really enjoy doing and how you can create time in your life for fun and enjoyment.

Rest and relaxation We need time to be idle with no particular purpose some of the time. This can help our brain recharge, especially our thinking brain.

Goals All of us have things we need to do related to school, work, and running our lives. Tackling goals and challenge help us feel capable and accomplished.

Nature Spending time outside and if possible, in nature, helps keep our brains and bodies healthy.

Reflection, Contemplation, Integration Time to reflect on, contemplate, and integrate your experiences and ideas. You need time to make sense of things and decide what they mean for you and your life.

Finally, your progress will not be in a straights line. Learning to manage and shrink anxiety and worry takes time and a lot of practice. You will be better at this some days than others, there will be ups and downs a long the way. When you hit a bump in the road, remember all the positive steps and progress you have made, remember all the pieces of your strong and stable foundation from chapter 2. Most of all, I am really proud of how hard you have worked to get this far. Thank you for letting me join you on this path towards managing your worry.

Š 2020, MEG KAPIL, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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THANK YOU!

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© 2020, MEG KAPIL, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED