From a 44 yr old veteran: Thank you!

This booklet just showed me how little importance we, as a society, give to the education of children and youth about their own minds. Just half a dozen courses in mental hygiene in K-12 are 100x more important than the dozens of courses on literature or maths or social sciences, sports or even hard sciences. We could have an entirely better society.

This disorder only works on blunt repetition. It's so easy to understand and so simple, but its bite is in its brute force repetition. Anything to reduce the intensity and frequency is good.

I recently discovered a simple trick - it must be covered in countless therapy exercises: Since anxiety is about grabbing, snatching, clenching, gripping, fixing, holding stiff, and rigidity, anything that makes the opposite movements helps fight it.

So take a ball, throw it gently in the air, let it fall, don't catch it. Collect it, throw it again. Repeat a 100 times.

Take few dozen sheets of used / rough paper, crumple them into a few dozen balls. Then throw them one after another onto a bed or the floor. Don't bother about cleanliness. Then go and collect them together.

After that, sit quietly and practise the same throwing action with your imaginations, with your perceived dangers, with your threats.

Notice how after some time of doing this, your mind realises that just as the thrown balls or thrown pieces of paper do not come back on their own, i.e. you have to collect them, so also, you can throw away thought objects and they stay thrown away.

Basically doing silly, zero-risk and inconsequential activities trains the system to tone down the fight or flight response.

Being silly and keeping a low bar are very important for anxiety.

This is a standard signature, like in web forums.

Superfast therapy for anxiety and panic:

Fear is meant to be your friend and to protect you, so if it starts hurting, it defeats its own purpose. Don't let it be like that. Make friends with your cautioning brain. Magic words to constantly repeat: Stop / wait / hold / no / safe / slow; slow down, then slow down some more; look around; there are always options; it's OK, I'm OK; discomfort is not danger, what you think is danger is actually only discomfort; symptoms of nerve defect not really danger; there is no danger; you are safe; there is safety; don't bully yourself, don't threaten yourself, don't caution yourself; bullying yourself does not solve anything, it creates more problems; excitement is bad, peaceful is good; why hurt yourself; inanimate objects don't have mind of their own; things cannot be predators; situations don't have mind or purpose; shit happens with everyone; nobody's plans work out; life happens; people are not always wise; repeat trauma is stupid; play stupid games, win stupid prizes; support yourself, love yourself, be gentle with yourself; don't be a predator, be peaceful; don't turn everything into combat; take a step back and pause; imaginary is virtual, not real, and does not exist outside your head; breathe deep and breathe slowly, relax your body; go with the flow; thoughts come, let them pass; you're allowed to say "pass, next" to your thoughts; thoughts are not special or great; absolutely everyone thinks weird stuff without exceptions; your brain needs to think weird stuff to identify it as weird; repeat trauma is self-harm, so why?; if the danger is inanimate, it is harmless; anxiety is all lies, repeated, convoluted, thorough and convincing lies. Slow is safe, fast is danger. Think slow, act slow; the right amount of fear is Eustress, anything more is waste; Fear is not safety; The ultimate truth is benign; The universe is not against you, it just is; Humans are evolved animals, so keep the bar low and forgive others and yourself often.

Everything needed (apart from medication) to reduce anxiety by 80-90% is in here (it's quite a bit and it takes time, but it is worth it):

Symptoms, not danger | Repeat these Magic Words | Happiness is a biological obligation | Repetition Compulsion | Understand anxiety | Understand OCD | Triune brain = human+mammal+reptile | Triune Brain, Dissocation, Neural Pathways | Handle panic | anxiety is sneaky | example of recovery | Identify bad beliefs | Trauma and freezing | Structure of Anxiety | Anxiety Game | love yourself | change the narrative | stop self-hate | emotional hygiene | Dr. Claire Weekes' book | Overcoming OCD and intrusive thoughts - book | Healthy vs anxious | Essential self-care in anxiety, depression, isolation, loneliness | mental version of Jacobson PMR | Flagging anxiety and panic - Dr. Harry Barry | Depression is a severe malfunction of a useful mechanism