3 Ways DBT Can Help Ease Anxiety
I vividly remember the first time I realized what anxiety was. Anxiety had been a constant companion for quite some time at that point in my life. Except, for the longest time I didn’t have a name for it. I thought it was “just the way I am” and I would get pretty down on myself about the things I did in response to my anxious thoughts and feelings. Then, one day I was anxiously sitting in a counseling session with a therapist I had just met that hour and I heard him say, “It sounds like you’re a person who lives with a lot of anxiety.” Really? That’s what this is? It was profoundly enlightening to hear him give a name to an experience that I had been struggling with for so long. I am so grateful for that moment because it allowed me to start down the path of accepting my anxiety and learning what to do with it. Today, I am a licensed clinical social worker who frequently treats people who are experiencing anxiety, and I often do that through the lens of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT for short. Let’s talk about three ways DBT can help with anxiety.
Tune in.
DBT calls it mindfulness, which just means learning how to tune in to what is happening in the present moment while acknowledging your response to it. You can practice this in any number of ways, but some common ways are following the breath or scanning the body. It might take some practice to get good at tuning in, but it is a skill that is very worth the effort.
Name it.
Once you have tuned in and checked out what is going on mentally and physically, use clues from your thoughts and physical sensations to help you pinpoint what you are feeling. Name that emotion as descriptively as you can. A feelings wheel might help if you are new to this whole naming emotions business. By giving a name to your experience, you have created a little space around it and loosened its grip on you.
Act opposite.
Now that you have identified your emotion, you can decide what you want to do with it. Opposite Action gives you the chance to respond to your experiences and emotions with intention. To practice this skill, identify the emotion (anxiety) and the action which the emotion is prompting you to do (leave the party, run away). Then, decide if you want to follow those prompts or not, and, if not, take steps to behave opposite to the emotion’s prompt (walk into the party with your head held high and identify a friendly person to chat with).
For me, these skills of tuning in, naming emotions, and being intentional when responding to an emotion’s prompt are tools that are incredibly useful in my day to day life, and they are ones that I have seen help my clients with anxiety. The world of DBT is vast and wide, and there is a DBT skill for almost any scenario you may be facing. Talking to a professional counselor or therapist can help you learn the skills you need and practice using them in your day to day life.
