The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Teen Anxiety: Activities to Help You Overcome Fears and Worries Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Instant Help Book for Teens)

Move past anxiety and discover what really matters to you. Written by three experts in teen mental health, this powerful workbook offers evidence-based activities grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you cope with anxiety, build resilience, stop avoiding the things you fear, and lead a fuller, happier life. Anxiety is what we feel when we’re scared about some future event that may or may not happen. When you’re struggling with anxiety your mind is trying to protect you from danger, so it’s busy telling you about all the things you can’t do. Along with these thoughts come a host of feelings and bodily sensations—such as sweaty palms, restlessness, lightheadedness, and stomach aches. But it’s not the anxious thoughts that make anxiety a problem. It’s the actions we take, or don’t take, as a result of these thoughts. In The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Teen Anxiety , you’ll find helpful alternatives to the ineffective strategies and habits you’re currently using to deal with anxiety, such as avoidance. You’ll find basic information about anxiety to help you recognize what it looks and feels like, mindfulness tips to help you stay in the moment when you feel worried about the future, and tips to help you connect with your own values so you can start putting the important things in life first. Contents 6 Foreward 10 Note to Readers 12 Note to Parents 15 Note to Clinicians 16 Part I: The Basics of Anxiety 18 Getting to Know Your Anxiety 19 Trying To Control Your Anxiety 23 The Cost Of Controlling Anxiety 27 Can Anyone Control Anxiety? 30 Part II: How We Misread Anxiety 34 Comparing To Others 35 What Matters Makes You Anxious 39 Everything Connects To Everything 42 Part III: Noticing Skills 46 Learning To Notice 47 Noticing In Everyday Life 50 Noticing, Even When Anxiety Shows Up 55 Grounding Skills 58 Part IV: You Are More Than Your Thoughts 62 Watching From A Distance 63 You Are Not Your Thoughts 66 Your Drone’s Perspective 69 Watching Thoughts 73 Say Your Thoughts In New Ways 76 Thoughts As Stickies 79 Part V: Allowing Feelings 82 Naming And Describing Feelings 83 Being Willing to Feel 86 Making Space For Feelings 89 Treating Feelings Like Puppies 92 Part VI: The You that Matters 96 Who And What Matters To Me 97 The Me I Want To Be 101 Value Traps 104 "Good Enough" is Not a Value 108 From Values to Goals 111 Making Moves 115 Making SMART Moves 118 Goal Traps 123 Part VII: LLAMA: Taking Action Step-­by-­Step 128 LLAMA: Labeling 129 LLAMA: Letting Go of Your Battles 133 LLAMA: Allowing Thoughts and Feelings 135 LLAMA: Mindfully Come Back to the Moment 139 LLAMA: Approach What Matters 142 Looking Ahead 148 Acknowledgments 150 Activity Answer Sheet 152 Notes 154 "In The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Teen Anxiety, you'll find helpful alternatives to the ineffective strategies and habits you're currently using to deal with anxiety, such as avoidance. You'll find basic information about anxiety to help you recognize what it looks and feels like, mindfulness tips to help you stay in the moment when you feel worried about the future, and tips to help you connect with your own values so you can start putting the important things in life first."-- Amazon.com Teens often try to avoid the things that make them anxious; but avoidance can actually make anxiety worse, and get in the way of reaching goals and living full lives. Written by three experts in teen mental health, this powerful workbook offers proven-effective activities grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help teens cope with anxiety, build resilience, discover what really matters to them, and lead fuller, more flexible lives.