Ellen Hendriksen – Treating Anxiety

Have you ever experienced anxiety? Of course you have. It’s that uneasiness in your stomach as you walk into a job interview or the feeling of nervousness on a first date. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; numerous studies have shown that moderate anxiety enhances performance. But for millions of Americans, anxiety is persistent and excessive, and significantly impacts daily life. In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health reports that 31% of adults in the United States experience an anxiety disorder at some time in their lives.

It might be hard to believe today, but anxiety started out as positive trait—You could even say you owe your life to it. In the world of our early ancestors, the only people who stayed alive long enough to pass on their genes were the ones who assumed that what was bad was bad and that what was ambiguous was bad, also. Anxiety told them that, even though they couldn’t see the bear right that minute, they had good reason to believe it was lurking nearby. Anxiety put your ancestors back in their cave, postponing hunting for another day. They were safe. Hungry? Maybe. But safe, definitely.

In the 12 fascinating and action-oriented lectures of Treating Anxiety, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen will help you identify and understand the causes and symptoms of numerous anxiety disorders—from generalized anxiety disorder to social anxiety to panic. With a calm approach, and always supported by rigorous scientific studies, she will give you numerous tools and exercises you can employ immediately to help treat your own anxiety. After all, few of us are in danger of being eaten by a bear these days and, as Dr. Henricksen says, “We don’t want to spend our lives hiding in the metaphorical cave.”

Anatomy of an Anxious Moment: Building Interventions

Think about the most recent time you had an anxious moment. Maybe you felt a spike in your anxiety because you were stuck in traffic and late to pick up your child from school. Or maybe you’re anxious about your finances now that your partner is between jobs. Whatever the cause of the anxiety, if you think about the moment in detail, you’ll be able to break it down into three components:

• What Did You Feel in Your Body? Maybe your heart started racing, your stomach cramped up, or you broke out in a sweat.
• What Were Your Thoughts at That Time? Try to remember what you said to yourself. Was your mind racing ahead to predict an awful outcome that you didn’t know how to solve? Think about the images that went through your mind.
• What Did You Do in the Moment Or Just Afterward? Did you send yourself voice messages, write notes even while you were driving, or turn up the volume on a playlist to distract yourself?

Every moment of anxiety has these same three basic components—physiology, thoughts, and behavior—no matter what type of anxiety you have. The great news about having identified these three components is that you now have three points of intervention.

In this course, you’ll learn to calm your body with breathing techniques and grounding. You’ll learn exercises to help you accept your thoughts for exactly what they are: not truth, but just thoughts. And you’ll learn to act in accordance with your values rather than your fears.

Cross-Cutting Factors

In Treating Anxiety, you’ll learn about the common themes that are found across all types of anxiety. Each anxiety disorder includes an element of:

• Perfectionism. This is a mindset that keeps you stuck in a cycle of over-evaluation and self-criticism that always leads to the same conclusion—You are never good enough and you never will be.
• Self-Criticism. When our self-criticism loses its objectivity and becomes harsh, inflexible, and intensely personal, that’s when it contributes to anxiety.
• Indecision and Procrastination. Indecision is avoidance of uncertainty. And procrastination, although it’s often labeled as a time-management problem, is actually the avoidance of negative emotions. Both characteristics lead to being stuck in a vicious cycle of anxiety.

Tools You Can Use

Each of the many, many anxiety-reducing tools Dr. Hendriksen teaches in this course falls into one of two buckets: change or acceptance. Many of the change tools come from a branch of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT posits that if we can change how we think, we can change how we feel—including anxiety. Acceptance means realizing that a particular thought, feeling, or physiological sensation is part of the package deal of living a meaningful life. It is developing a willingness to experience the components of anxiety, while seeing those experiences as being separate from you. It definitely does not mean resignation and giving up feeling any differently than you feel now.

Among the many useful tools Dr. Hendricksen teaches, you will learn about:

• Cognitive Defusion. With this technique, you will cultivate the ability to observe your obsessions or frightening thoughts without getting tangled up in them. You will learn how to see them as thoughts, nothing more and nothing less. You’ll practice imagining your thoughts as if they were background music playing at your favorite coffee shop. It’s there, but you’re not listening directly or getting involved.
• Changing from Either/Or to Both/And. You will start by completing this sentence to describe yourself: “I am ____.” But what happens when those labels become over-evaluation. If you fail a test, for example, your anxiety tells you to change “I am smart” to “I am stupid.” But you can learn instead to know that both statements are true: “I am a smart person, and I didn’t study enough for that test.” After all, however we think of ourselves, life is unpredictable, and we will all make mistakes.
• Slowing and Calming Your Physiology. While our respiratory system usually works unconsciously, we can access it directly and deliberately. Since all of our bodily systems want to work together, we can use breathing as a gateway to begin calming our other systems. In this course, you will learn the popular “4-7-8” breathing, box breathing, and several other calming techniques.

While this course gives you many tools for self-treating your anxiety, you might prefer working with a therapist one-on-one. Dr. Hendriksen provides guidance on how to locate one, giving you resources to find the right therapist for you. Also, in this course, a psychiatrist addresses questions about anti-anxiety medication. No matter which route is right for you, you will find calming support in Treating Anxiety.