Coralie R's Key Ideas from Outsmarting Worry
by Dawn Huebner

• Telling yourself a story. It could involve you as the main character, in your threatening situation, and how you end up solving the problem, and everything ends well.

• Sum up your worry in one mental sentence, making it seem simple and unimportant to you.

• This tip is from a book I read: “ You can mentally talk to your worry as if it is a monster, and you can tell it nicely, or sternly, to go away”.

• For a long term tip, can (and I read this in a book too) “choose five minutes from every day to worry. Not near bedtime, not at school/work. No worrying at other times in the day.

• This involves actually taking action on your anxiety.

• If no mental solutions work after several tries, this is where you go from there.

• If you’re around others, you can ask to take a minute. If you need an excuse, say you’re not feeling well, because that is technically the truth.

• If you repeatedly need something to calm you down, try holding on to an ice cube while sucking on a super sour candy.

• Get outside and go for a run or a walk. Go somewhere like a like a forest, though, where the likelihood of running into other people is slim, and you have calm surroundings with lots of nature.

• Something that a lot of people do is get a counsellor/ therapist. It can be very helpful to have someone trustworthy to talk to.