Assessment: Is it working?
Check in here to monitor progress
Every person's progress will be different. Every individual is unique in the complex make-up of forces that give them anxiety and depression problems. The focus is on incremental changes in thinking and behavior targeted specifically at the things that make YOU anxious. The point of Anxiety Lab is to help people figure out the source of their anxiety and learn how to nearly eliminate it from their lives.
Whatever the root cause of your anxiety, it will be up to you to monitor your progress in dealing with it.
After 3 months of doing 4 activities a day, a minimum of 5 days a week,
you should ask these questions:
Am I feeling better?
Am I solving my problems?
Am I working toward my goals?
Am I having fewer conflicts?
As you weave the activities into your normal daily routine, progress can be accounted for by asking the 4 questions above.
Use your journal to keep track of progress as you write about your activities and feelings during the three months. When you start to feel a little less anxious right away from the deep breathing and meditation, that is already some progress.
Working on specific things that you discover make you anxious and adjusting something in your life to change it (even if all you changed was your attitude or perspective to it) is good progress.
Anxiety has a major physiological component. Learning to change one's physical responses is a key part of the whole anxiety elimination process.
Objectives:
Once you first decide to take charge of your anxiety and/or depression - that is a MILESTONE
MILESTONES are fuel for further work. Milestones are to be noticed, celebrated and built on for further progress.
Once you first recognize a physical symptom as just anxiety - that is a MILESTONE
Once you are able to recognize your thinking habits - that is a MILESTONE
Once you pin-point something that has to change - that is a MILESTONE
Once you are able to detect the on-set of an anxiety feeling or attack - that is a MILESTONE
Once you are able to actively choose to think in a different way - that is a MILESTONE
Once you are able to shut down an on-coming anxiety attack - that is a MILESTONE
Once you are able to recognize a physical symptom in the moment and stop it - that is a MILESTONE
Once you have re-educated your body to not automatically respond in anxious ways - that is a MILESTONE
Once you achieve the ability to actively change how you think - that is a MILESTONE
Once you have contributed to the well-being of others - that is a MILESTONE
CAUTION:
Expecting perfection could lead to further anxiety and depression. There is no realistic way to achieve human perfection. There will still be anxious moments even for those who have eliminated extreme anxiety from their lives.