You’ll be cheating yourself if you only use your emotions to judge,
because they’re driven by the false alarm part. You’ll need good old-fashioned reason. If
you are not actually in measurable, imminent danger and threat of harm to your person, you’re at the wrong end!

Don’t forget, even getting out of bed in the morning carries just a teeny bit of risk (who hasn’t stubbed their toe on the cat…) but ‘risk’ is not the same as ‘ danger’ so it may help to borrow someone else’s decision when you first start getting used to this method,
especially if you find yourself rating ‘waiting at the bus stop’ as ‘Argghhh – I might die’ and using ‘yeah, but.. What if…?’ In this case, think how a sensible friend would rate the danger.

What’s the point? So… we will then have concrete proof that what you are experiencing, whilst horrifying, is actually habitual and learned false alarms/physical symptoms that should signify danger but are actually false alarms that need dealing with entirely differently as they are just physical echoes of old fear.

How is this helpful? If you did this twice a day for a hundred and twenty three years and hardly ever have more than a cm from the ‘gosh it was a false alarm’ end, how do you think your thinking about your symptoms would change?

 Do it every time you start to feel anxious.
 Consider using this alongside other CBT tools that help retrain you’re out of
control fight or flight.
 Do it lots.
 Don’t wait a hundred and twenty three years before evaluating the results.
 It’s OK to get assertive with your anxiety symptoms and show them whose boss.

Try completing one of these worksheets in a pro-active structured way when you have an anxiety provoking event to deal with
FEAR DANGER
0 25 _50 75 100
FALSE ACTUAL ALARM SCARY THREAT
Outcome
Rate you anxiety half way through …… Actual anxiety experience rating …… How was it?
Event: …………………………………………………………………………….
Anxiety at outset: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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