Some people choose to deal with their anxiety disorder with just one approach; perhaps prescription drugs or only natural remedies. Others take a multi-pronged approach and often find that each one benefits the other and this is where cognitive behavioural therapy methods often work their magic.

Using just a pen and paper you can give yourself the confidence boost, reassurance and calm to get on with your life as you mean to go on. Written exercises are a huge part of CBT therapy and while many anxiety sufferers learn these methods from CBT specialists, it's always possible and certainly not harmful to take these home and practice them on a daily basis.

One of the first things that cognitive behavioural therapy professionals will recommend is drawing up a diary of your anxiety, so that you can monitor it and identify trends within your feelings. This involves having a daily diary and each day you make an account of how you feel during certain times (perhaps three times, once in the morning, once at lunch time and once in the evening). Do this as an 8 column table with a column showing the time of day, another showing what you are doing and another showing how anxious you are on a scale of one to ten. Once you have gone through the experience and are onto the next time of day, fill out a column that asks how you then feel on a scale of one to ten. The last column asks what you think you could do to improve your anxiety, having learnt what you have from the experience. This exercise will probably show you, in writing and as a reminder you can look back on, that tackling situations you are afraid of is never as bad as you perceive and you have a greater ability to deal with them than you think. Carry this diary with you whenever you can to fill it out on the move.

The next paper exercise to use to treat your anxiety is one that will boost your confidence, rather than help you get to know your individual anxiety disorder better. Take three pieces of paper, one with the heading 'small goals' one with the heading 'medium goals' and the last with the heading 'biggest goals'. On each write a list of ambitions that have corresponding significance to you. For instance, if you are agoraphobic then a small goal could be picking some weeds from your front garden, or standing outside your house for 2 minutes and looking down the street. A medium goal could be walking down the road and back again, or even just half way. One of your biggest goals could be going to the supermarket to buy bread and milk, going to the pub for a drink or perhaps going to a friend's house for an hour.

Now, try doing one small goal every day, two medium goals each week and one big goal each week. Write down how you felt after each one and make a big deal out of ticking off goals that you have achieved. Look back after a month at the huge list of ticks you've got and read out to a friend or family member all the big goals you've undertaken. This should give you a confidence boost that you'll get addicted to and won't be able to help yourself carrying on!

Stan Tian

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