50 Ways to Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M. Pittman Maha Zayed Hoffman

Author:Catherine M. Pittman, Maha Zayed Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-16T21:35:03+00:00

Strategies to Reduce or Eliminate Compulsions and Safety Behaviors

Track the compulsion by recording the number of times you engage in it. Research shows that self-monitoring can help you change a behavior (Balaghi et al. 2022).

Try to reduce the frequency of the behavior or eliminate some part of it. For example, if you tend to examine your skin and feel for bumps, only allow yourself to do one of these.

Delay using the behavior. Even if your urge is strong, you can tell yourself that you can resist for the next fifteen or thirty minutes and do it after that. Building your ability to resist gives the amygdala time to learn. Notice how you become more able to resist!

Engage in a valued act instead of the behavior. For example, go for a walk, call a friend, or take a hot shower instead of engaging in the compulsion.

If the behavior is mental, you can resist by focusing your attention on watching a game, making a phone call, or counting backward from 100 by 7s. Because these tasks require all of your attention, it is difficult to engage in a mental compulsion at the same time.

Remind yourself why you don’t want to engage in the compulsion. These could be things like, I don’t want the amygdala to control my life. I want to have less anxiety. I don’t want to waste my time on this anymore.

Try to sit with the anxiety without doing anything, even for just a few minutes. This may feel uncomfortable at first but you’ll find that it should get easier the more you practice.

Engage in progressive muscle relaxation or mindfulness instead. Focus your attention on being curious about your experience of anxiety.

Get help from someone. Ask a trusted friend or your significant other to engage in a pleasurable activity with you when they see you using a compulsion.

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