Overcoming Anxiety, Stress and Panic: A Five Areas Approach

Professor Chris Williams BSc (Hons), MBCHB, MMedSc, MD, FRCPsych Professor of Psychosocial Psychiatry and Honarary Consultant Psychiatrist, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

• Understanding why you feel as you do: Tackling your anxiety: starting out (... and how to keep going if you feel stuck). Understanding worry and stress. Understanding panic and phobias. Understanding obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCD). Making changes: Making changes to do with people and events around us. How to start fixing problems and finding solutions (practical problem solving). How to ask for what you really need (being assertive). Learning to be calmer, less annoyed and less irritated. Making changes in your life. How to get a good night's sleep: overcoming anxiety and sleep problems. Using exercise to overcome stress. Things you do that worsen your anxiety (unhelpful behaviours). Stress, alcohol and drugs. Facing fears and overcoming avoidance. Understanding and overcoming shyness and social phobia. Noticing and changing anxious thinking. Understanding and overcoming feelings of depersonalization. Overcoming anxious overbreathing (hyperventilation). Understanding and using anti-anxiety medication. Planning for the future.