The Anxiety Toolkit Quotes

“學者會用「臨床完美主義」（clinical perfectionism）這個術語來描述最易造成問題的完美主義。當臨床完美主義者設法達到他們的超高標準時，他們往往會得出這樣的結論：一般標準一定不夠高，必須再上修標準。這意味著他們永遠無法感到心安理得。”
― Alice Boyes, 與焦慮和解：克服過度完美主義、拖延症、害怕批評，從自我檢測中找回生活平衡的實用指南

“Virtually every version of CBT for anxiety disorders involves working through what’s called an exposure hierarchy. The concept is simple. You make a list of all the situations and behaviors you avoid due to anxiety. You then assign a number to each item on your list based on how anxiety provoking you expect doing the avoided behavior would be. Use numbers from 0 (= not anxiety provoking at all) to 100 (= you would fear having an instant panic attack). For example, attempting to talk to a famous person in your field at a conference might be an 80 on the 0-100 scale.
Sort your list in order, from least to most anxiety provoking. Aim to construct a list that has several avoided actions in each 10-point range. For example, several that fall between 20 and 30, between 30 and 40, and so on, on your anxiety scale. That way, you won’t have any jumps that are too big. Omit things that are anxiety-provoking but wouldn’t actually benefit you (such as eating a fried insect).
Make a plan for how you can work through your hierarchy, starting at the bottom of the list. Where possible, repeat an avoided behavior several times before you move up to the next level. For example, if one of your items is talking to a colleague you find intimidating, do this several times (with the same or different colleagues) before moving on.
When you start doing things you’d usually avoid that are low on your hierarchy, you’ll gain the confidence you need to do the things that are higher up on your list. It’s important you don’t use what are called safety behaviors. Safety behaviors are things people do as an anxiety crutch—for example, wearing their lucky undies when they approach that famous person or excessively rehearsing what they plan to say.
There is a general consensus within psychology that exposure techniques like the one just described are among the most effective ways to reduce problems with anxiety. In clinical settings, people who do exposures get the most out of treatment. Some studies have even shown that just doing exposure can be as effective as therapies that also include extensive work on thoughts. If you want to turbocharge your results, try exposure. If you find it too difficult to do alone, consider working with a therapist.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Even if you achieve only intermittent reinforcement—that is, you experience success only sometimes—having some successes will make your behavior much more resilient, and you’ll be less likely to give up.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“To implement this change in your own life, whenever you’re planning to take action, identify when and where you’ll act. Make this a habit you do every time.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“The best way to instantly feel less anxious is to slow your breathing.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Changing your behavior, without waiting for your thoughts to always shift first, is one of the best and fastest ways you can reduce your anxiety.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Another way to increase your resiliency is to diversify your sources of self-esteem.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Resiliency refers to the strengths and resources you have for coping with stress and challenges.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“focusing on your anxiety symptoms has caused them to increase?”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Avoidance coping is one behavioral pattern that causes anxiety to grow like a weed; another is overmonitoring your symptoms.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“sense of competency might come from being good at computer tasks, being able to prepare a dinner party for 10, or paying your bills on time.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Self-esteem is composed of (1) a sense of self-worth and (2) a sense of being competent at things.4”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“esteem is composed of (1) a sense of self-worth and (2) a sense of being competent at things.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“You’ll feel less anxious if your self-esteem isn’t too closely tied to just one or two domains.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Just like putting all your money in a single stock is risky, putting all your self-esteem eggs in one basket is psychologically risky.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“One of the ways severe anxiety sucks people into its vortex is that avoiding anxiety often becomes the person’s central focus. The more this happens, the more anxious the person becomes.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“conscientiousness is not the same thing as perfectionism.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“People high in conscientiousness often get particularly great results from learning cognitive behavioral principles and skills. Why? They tend to like the systematic nature of a cognitive behavioral approach. They do well because they work hard to understand themselves and are diligent in applying their learning to their lives.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“If you’re anxious and agreeable, you may find yourself overcommitting to things because you overestimate the potential negative consequences of saying no. More generally, you may hold back from saying things you want to say because of anxiety about how you’ll be perceived.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“You don’t need to fundamentally change your nature; you just need to understand your thinking style and learn tricks so you can shift your thoughts and behavior when it’s advantageous to you to do so.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“It’s fine to be someone who likes to mull things over and consider things that could go wrong. If you’re not spontaneous or happy-go-lucky by nature, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either. It’s fine to consider potential negative outcomes . . . as long as you also: Consider potential positive outcomes. Recognize that a possible negative outcome isn’t necessarily a reason not to do something. Recognize your innate capacity to cope with things that don’t go according to plan.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Successfully navigating anxiety involves learning how to accept, like, and work with your nature rather than fighting against it.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“Reducing your anxiety to zero isn’t possible or useful. Anxiety itself isn’t the problem. The problem occurs when anxiety gets to the point that it’s paralyzing, and you become stuck. I think of these bottlenecks as anxiety traps. We’re going to work on managing your responses to five anxiety traps: excessively hesitating before taking action, ruminating and worrying, paralyzing perfectionism, fear of feedback and criticism, and avoidance (including procrastination).”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“For many of us who suffer from anxiety, our anxiety alarms fire too often when there isn’t a good reason to be excessively cautious.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“當你發現自己正在拖延時，就瀏覽以下這個思維錯誤的列表，看看是否有幫助。”
― Alice Boyes, 與焦慮和解：克服過度完美主義、拖延症、害怕批評，從自我檢測中找回生活平衡的實用指南

“Anxious people tend to think about the potential harm of acting more than the potential harm of not acting.”
― Alice Boyes, The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

“焦慮本身不是個問題。當焦慮升高到使你停滯，而你陷入了困境，這才是個問題。我認為這些瓶頸就像是焦慮的陷阱。我們將要來處理你對五種焦慮陷阱的反應：過度猶豫不決、反芻思考與擔憂、因完美主義而停滯、害怕建議與批評，以及逃避（包含拖延）。”
― Alice Boyes, 與焦慮和解：克服過度完美主義、拖延症、害怕批評，從自我檢測中找回生活平衡的實用指南

“首先是建立自我認識，理解哪些思維和行為模式會引發及持續你的焦慮。透過焦慮研究，我們已經知道了這些模式，接著我將討論到如何學會辨認它們。”
― Alice Boyes, 與焦慮和解：克服過度完美主義、拖延症、害怕批評，從自我檢測中找回生活平衡的實用指南

“我們可能一直在做一些短期內能減少焦慮的事情，像是避開那些會使我們陷入焦慮的情況;但從長遠來看，卻實際上反而增加了焦慮。”
― Alice Boyes, 與焦慮和解：克服過度完美主義、拖延症、害怕批評，從自我檢測中找回生活平衡的實用指南

“但其實是一種演化的優勢，一種能讓我們停下來審視周遭的高度警戒系統。”
― Alice Boyes, 與焦慮和解：克服過度完美主義、拖延症、害怕批評，從自我檢測中找回生活平衡的實用指南