Hints and tips from Amelia and John

Amelia: “I found I would worry sat in certain places in the house, like before getting out of bed in the morning and when trying to get off to sleep. Keeping my list with me helped. As well as getting out of bed when I woke up instead of lying there. If I noticed myself worrying sat in a chair, I would” 17 John: “You don’t need to use the problem solving steps if you already know what action to take to solve a practical problem, but they are there if you need them. I found they really helped me to not procrastinate on the ones where I was unsure or felt overwhelmed by. It helped me to break things down, but I didn’t need to use them for every practical worry I had” Amelia: “Learning to refocus your attention can be hard. At first, I got really frustrated with myself that my worries came back after I refocused my attention. My practitioner explained that is to be expected and just to re-write them down and refocus. I also found the thought suppression exercise helped me to see that battling with my worries, trying to push them away, was actually making it worse!” John: “I had been worrying for hours a day. I didn’t think I could save them all up for worry time, or that I would have enough time to worry about them all. I wondered if not worrying about them until later was really a good plan initially. Well, I quickly realised that trying to worry on purpose and focus attention on them in worry time was so hard, it wasn’t easy to do and certainly not nice. I started to not feel as worried about not worrying anymore! ”