How Graded Practice Will Help Your Anxiety Attacks
Facing Fear through Graded Practice
First you must understand your fear: you need to know exactly what frightens you and causes your anxiety attacks. For example, you might say that you are afraid of spiders, but this could mean quite different things to two persons. One might be able to tolerate a medium-sized spider at me other side of the room, and only become frightened if that spider moved nearer, while the other would become panicky just looking at a picture of a small spider. In this instance, you need to ask yourself.
What size of spider makes me feel anxious?
How near can I tolerate the spider?
Does it make a difference where I am, or what time of day it happens to be?
Does it make a difference if I am with someone?
These questions will help you managing anxiety attacks. When you have answered them, you will be able to describe your fear that brings on your anxiety attack in more detail. You might discover that your anxiety is only triggered by large spiders, and that you can tolerate medium-sized or small ones; that you cannot bear a large spider in the same room as yourself, but you are reasonably comfortable if you know one is in another room; that you are more afraid of spiders at night, when you can’t see them; and that you feel much less anxious when you have someone with you.
