My own vicious cycle The symptoms you experience in one area, can impact and have a knock-on effect on the other areas and maintain your worries and anxiety. For example when you have worrying thoughts, you become tense physically. This can lead to further physical symptoms like headaches, aches and pains and disrupt your sleep. In turn, this can lead to more tension and more worrying. Similarly, you may try to avoid situations that feel uncertain, put things off or spend lots of time planning and preparing. You might also seek reassurance from other people. This can reduce how you are feeling in the short term, but keep you in a cycle of worry and anxiety long term. The good news, is that If you break into the cycle using the techniques in this workbook, you can have a positive impact on the other areas and the cycle can be reversed. The worry management techniques in this guide will help you to do that in a personalised way that best fits with your symptoms. Write down the symptoms you are experiencing in each of the areas below.
Physical symptoms
Behaviours
7
Altered thoughts
© Marie Chellingsworth (2020). The CBT Resource.
