When people come to see me about anxiety there are three activities that consistently help people to manage and reduce it. In this article I'm going to describe them so that you can use them yourself. In turn they involve one hour, two words, or three pages.

1 One hour: Active worrying

This is setting aside time every day to worry, and to start with most people find an hour manageable. There are however three rules to follow to make this work.

Rule 1 is that you can only worry during your Active Worry time. You can only make a mental note of any worries that come to you outside of this time. This also applies to any worries left unwritten at the end of the worry time.

Rule 2 is that the worrying has to be written down, and has to follow this structure

• Ask yourself - "What am I worrying about?"
• Ask yourself - "Can I do something about it?"
• If you can't do something about it then change focus, and let the worry go
• If you can do something about it then plan - What? When? How?
• If it's now then do it, change focus, and let the worry go
• If it's later then schedule it, change focus, and let the worry go