How Do You Experience Fear and Anxiety?

Now that we have talked about the functions of anxiety and fear, let’s start working toward increasing your awareness of these emotions. Being soundly aware of anxiety and fear will be important for learning the skills we’ll teach you later in this book. You need to know what anxiety and fear feel like in order to identify them when they occur and then figure out the best skills to use in that situation.

To increase awareness of fear and anxiety, you need to break these feelings down into all of their parts. Emotions are actually made up of many different internal experiences, such as thoughts, bodily sensations, and behaviors. You can increase your awareness of fear and anxiety when they occur by identifying all the different pieces that make up the overarching experience labeled “anxiety” or “fear.” In addition, you can also increase your awareness of when anxiety and fear are likely to occur by identifying the types of situations that bring up anxiety and fear. Exercise 1.1 will help you do all of this.

Exercise 1.1 Identify How You Experience Fear and Anxiety

In the first column, labeled “Situations, ” we want you to identify any situation that brings up anxiety or fear for you. Now, keep in mind that anxiety-­provoking situations can be in the outside world (for example, getting lost in a bad neighborhood or receiving an e-­mail from your boss calling for a meeting with you right away) or inside your own body (for example, feeling short of breath or experiencing your heart racing). Remember, the fight-­or-­flight response really doesn’t discriminate between inherently threatening situations and situations that we merely evaluate as threatening.

Next, in the column labeled “Bodily Sensations, ” we want you to write down any change that you notice in your body as a result of encountering an anxiety-­provoking situation. For example, you may notice a racing heart, muscle tension, or shortness of breath. You may also notice some changes in how you perceive things in your environment. For example, when in a state of anxiety, sometimes people experience a narrowing of their vision or attention (tunnel vision) on the threatening object (such as a snake or spider) or sensation (such as an unpleasant thought or physical sensation). When in this state, people may have difficulty redirecting their attention away from the object (or person) perceived as threatening, or they may be more likely to notice other threatening aspects of their environments. Known as attentional bias, this is a very common experience in anxiety (MacLeod, Mathews, and Tata 1986). For instance, someone with social anxiety disorder who is giving a speech may be more likely to notice people in the audience who are yawning or frowning, even if there are many more people who look interested or are smiling.

In the next column, labeled “Thoughts, ” write down the type of thoughts that you experience when you are fearful or anxious. More often than not, your thoughts will revolve around the idea of threat or danger. Called mood-­congruent thinking, this has to do with the fact that thoughts are strongly connected to emotions. Have you ever noticed that you have more positive thoughts when you are happy? How about more negative or unpleasant thoughts when you are sad or anxious? This is mood-­congruent thinking. When in a state of anxiety or fear, we are much more likely to have thoughts that are in line with that emotional state. In addition, when anxious, we are also more likely to have memories of past anxiety-­provoking events (Mitte 2008).

Now, if you are having a hard time identifying specific thoughts, ask yourself if you ever engage in “what if” thinking, or worry. Worry is a common experience in anxiety. Worry refers to future-­oriented negative thoughts about a possible real-­life problem or concern (Molina et al. 1998). Worry often stems from situations in which the outcome is uncertain or unpredictable (two aspects of a situation that will naturally bring up anxiety). For example, let’s say that you lose your wallet. This would naturally be a stressful and anxiety-­provoking event, and you may start to have thoughts such as What if they use my credit card? What if they find out where I live and break into my house? In many ways, worry can seem like an attempt to solve problems in order to create a sense of certainty and predictability. However, this process can backfire, especially when it is directed at future events, which are beyond our control. We’ll discuss this in greater detail in chapter 6.

When you are anxious, you may also find yourself engaging in “all-­or-­nothing” thinking (also called “black-­and-­white” thinking). With all-­or-­nothing thinking, a person can get stuck in the idea that there are only two possible outcomes to a situation (Beck 1995). For example, if you are nervous about going out on a first date, you may think to yourself that if the date doesn’t end up going perfectly, it will be a complete failure. Catastophizing is another way of thinking that often occurs with anxiety. As the name implies, you are catastrophizing when you expect the worst to happen or that certain experiences will have extreme negative consequences for your well-­being (ibid.). For instance, some people with panic disorder believe that an increased heart rate is a sign that they are having a heart attack.

The next column is labeled “Action Tendencies.” All emotions prepare you for some kind of action. As you discussed earlier, anxiety and fear prepare you to escape or avoid a distressing situation (or to fight or freeze if you can’t escape the situation). This is what we want to capture within this column; when you experience anxiety and fear, what do you want to do? Do you have an urge to respond in a certain way? Do you want to run out of the room, scream, or disappear? In this column, write down what you feel like doing, as opposed to what you actually do.

Finally, in the last column, write down everything that you actually do when you feel afraid or anxious. How do you respond to the experience of anxiety and fear? Do you use deep breathing, meditation, prayer, or distraction (for example, reading a book like this one)? Do you drink or use drugs to try to escape these feelings? Do you eat comforting foods? Do you bite your nails or pick at the skin around them? Or, do you engage in more severe self-­harm, such as cutting or burning yourself? In this column, make sure you write down everything you tend to do, both positive and negative, when you feel anxiety or fear. Identifying the positive coping strategies you are already using to manage anxiety is just as important as figuring out the things you do to manage anxiety that may not work as well. This exercise can help bring your attention to the strengths and skills you already have, in addition to those areas that you may need to work on.