Weirdly, the exact opposite works for me. As someone recently dealing with a measure of anxiety, I found that a 3 step process has helped remove the worst of i

Weirdly, the exact opposite works for me. As someone recently dealing with a measure of anxiety, I found that a 3 step process has helped remove the worst of it. 1. Examine the feeling - Pay attention to the thoughts causing the anxiety. What exactly about it is disturbing? What outcomes are you afraid is going to happen. Think about it like an interesting topic you are hearing about. What questions would you ask? 2. Explore the feeling - Articulate how it makes you feel. Where in your body are you experiencing this feeling? Is your mind racing, your chest tightening, stomach churning? Notice each feeling and where it is happening. 3. Exaggerate the feeling - Take the anxiety causing thought and turn it up to 11. If you are feeling anxious about your job, imagine you not only get fired but the company takes out an ad in the NY times letting everyone in the industry know not to hire you again. If you're anxious about not saving enough, imagine you go bankrupt and have to live in a cardboard box by the street. Don't just imagine the worst case scenario, imagine the nuclear + ebola scenario. After making a habit of this, I found that my reaction to these thoughts is not as emotionally severe. I don't know exactly why it works but my guess is that when your mental response to stress is disproportionate to the stimuli, the process of examining the thoughts acts as a way of desensitizing the mind to the stimulus whilst keeping some emotional distance from them. The act of exaggeration adds some comic relief to the process and, I find, actually makes me (slightly) look forward to the anxious thoughts ("Ooh, I wonder what crazy scenario I am going to come up with for this one") and replaces the negative feeling (fear, churning) with a positive one (curiosity, excitement).