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

Altered thoughts

John: “It helped to set goals of what I wanted to be able to do when my symptoms in the cycle improved. This really helped me focus. I also knew I was making progress by looking at them every so often.”

Amelia: “I knew that if I wasn’t so anxious, I would be doing a lot more. If I was honest with myself, it really held me back in life. I wanted to progress further in my career for one. Even though I got promoted within my current job, I had put off applying for great opportunities with other companies because of it. It zapped my confidence. I also realised I avoided us doing lots of things as a family, just in case something bad happened. I missed out on holidays, days out and social events. Once my GAD improved, all those things became possible again”