TIPS TO DEVELOP YOUR COPING TECHNIQUES

TIPS TO DEVELOP YOUR COPING TECHNIQUES
Coping With Panic Disorder
Enhancing your coping techniques can help you deal with anxiety-provoking situations. If you have panic disorder, agoraphobia, or another anxiety disorder, such situations may occur on a daily basis. Here are some tips to help you refine your coping skills during stressful events.
Identify Your Panic Triggers
With the exception of uncued panic attacks, they're probably easy to spot. Does just the thought of standing in a long grocery store line make you panic? That would be a definite trigger.
Avoid Avoidance
In order to learn to cope with your panic and anxiety, you have to practice your skills while experiencing your distressing symptoms. If certain situations are just too difficult, or you are too fearful to do this, you can experience the situation by means of roleplaying or just imagining yourself in the situation.
Rate Your Anxiety Level
Are you at 2 with little discomfort or are you at an all out 10? Evaluate and think about your anxiety level while in the stressful situation.
4 Use Relaxation and Coping Techniques
Some techniques that may help you deal with anxiety or diffuse a panic attack may include:
Positive Self-Talk
Deep Breathing
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Thought Stopping
Reevaluate Your Anxiety Level
Are your coping techniques working? The goal is not necessarily to be anxiety-free. Rather, can you feel a change in your anxiety level, no matter how smell, as a result of your efforts?
Practice, Practice, Practice
The more often you are able to use your coping techniques to minimize panic and anxiety, the easier it will be to call upon skills. Soon you will realize that you are able to control your panic. What a great feeling when you may have been at its mercy for so long!
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