1. Anxiety Friend or Foe?

2. Why Anxiety?
Explore what anxiety is and how it pervades the human condition- it has the capacity to be both helpful and pathological depending on the biological and environmental factors an individual is subject to. Ie Resilience versus illness.

3. What is Anxiety?
Normal emotional reaction to a perceived threat- It aids performance!
An adaptive response to protect from harm
Adrenaline release
Fight or flight response
When in real danger, anxiety and its accompanying cluster of physiological symptoms serve to promote our safety
When the anxiety reaction becomes overly sensitive it can disrupt normal life and become extremely debilitating
Stuart

4. Key Messages
Anxiety can impair people’s CAPACITY TO FUNCTION and can link and lead to many other presentations and difficulties
Anxiety effects us all at times.
When the body is in ‘FIGHT OR FLIGHT’ it is bombarded with chemicals including Cortisol and Adrenalin.
Performance is enhanced by low level anxiety but when you are FLOODED this impairs your capacity to learn and retain information. Higher order brain functioning cannot be accessed.
Read extract from ‘What to do when you worry too much’
DG 9.10

5. Anxiety Curve

6. Discuss? When have you avoided a task or commitment because you were anxious or overwhelmed?

7. Avoiding situations where anxiety may occur
Behaviours
Avoiding situations where anxiety may occur
Leaving situations when anxiety begins to occur
Thoughts
Overestimation of danger
Underestimation of ability to cope
Underestimation of help available
Worries and catastrophic thoughts
CBT model of the anxious individual response
Physical reactions
Racing heart
Muscle tension
Sweaty palms
Light-headedness
Rapid breathing
Moods
Nervous
Irritable
Anxious
Panicky

9. Stress Vulnerability Model
“As long as the stress induced by challenging events stays below the threshold of vulnerability, the individual… remains well within the limits of normality. When the stress exceeds the threshold, the person is likely to develop a psychopathological episode of some sort…. When the stress abates and sinks below the vulnerability thresholds, the episode ends” (Zubin and Spring, 1977)

12. Exercise.
Have a go yourself, thinking of all of these domains within the contexts of your own lives?

13. Coping Strategies
Mindfulness, Exercise, Breathing, Relaxation,Distraction, Visualisation, Problem solving, Activity, Sensory management, self soothing, walking.
Read extract from ‘What to do when you worry too much’
DG 9.10

14. Mindfulness
Why?
Who uses Mindfulness or some other stress management approach within the workplace?
It-
Helps with emotional regulation
Helps to take back control of thought processes.
Restores Homeostasis.

16. Mindfulness
It is a way of taking back control of the mind. Being in the present moment rather than ruminating about what has happen in the past or worrying about the future.

17. Mindfulness Emotional mind is hot.
Rational mind is cold, task orientated.

18. Mindfulness Skills What Skills Observe Describe Participate How Skills
Non-judgemental
Effective
One-mindful (focusing on one thing)
Emotional mind is hot.
Rational mind is cold, task orientated.