Anxiety is part of our brain’s hardwired threat response, which has helped humans survive for thousands of years.

We have all experienced anxiety at some point, whether it’s hearing a bump in the night or preparing for an exam.

However, over-activation of the anxiety response can have a debilitating impact, and anxiety difficulties are one of the most commonly presented mental health problems (Stansfeld et al., 2016). Thankfully, there are many evidence-based anxiety management tools available.

This article provides key information for practitioners, with over 20 helpful anxiety tools to help clients cope with and overcome anxiety difficulties.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our five positive psychology tools for free. These engaging, science-based exercises will help you effectively deal with difficult circumstances and give you the tools to improve the resilience of your clients, students, or employees.

What Is Anxiety According to Psychology?

Anxiety is a normal and adaptive emotional response, defined as feelings of distress, worry, and physiological symptoms in the context of apprehensively anticipating future danger or misfortune (American Psychological Association, 2013).

Anxiety is the activation of the body’s fight, flight, or freeze response, which is often experienced as restlessness, trembling, poor concentration, sweating, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and irritability (Clark & Beck, 2011).

Although anxiety is a normal experience, it can become a problem when it exceeds the reality of potential danger. This can lead to excessive fear, hypersensitivity to threat, and unhelpful behavior change that impacts daily functioning (Clark & Beck, 2011).

Medical professionals can categorize these difficulties as anxiety disorders, such as panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder (American Psychological Association, 2013).

Beck, Emery, and Greenberg’s (2005) cognitive theory suggests that anxiety difficulties stem from an overestimation of danger and underestimation of coping ability. In this theory, negative cognitions (e.g., predictions and appraisals) start the vicious cycle of anxiety, triggering associated physiological responses and safety behaviors (e.g., avoiding or escaping feared situations).

Although safety behaviors alleviate anxiety in the short term, they can lead to anxious predictions never being challenged, which maintains or worsens anxiety in the long term (Wells, 1997).

This brief TED Talk video introduces anxiety and the fight, flight, or freeze response.

How to Cope with Anxiety and Worries

Here are four steps for helping your clients cope with anxiety.

1. Psychoeducation

It is important to normalize anxiety initially and provide information about the brain’s threat response (Donker, Griffiths, Cuijpers, & Christensen, 2009).

Normalizing anxiety helps to reduce a client’s sense of shame or feeling that there’s something wrong with them (Welford, 2010). Here’s an example of an anxiety psychoeducation video.

For further reading about psychoeducation, this article explains how to provide Psychoeducation in Groups.

2. Anxiety monitoring

Keeping track of experiences of anxiety can help clients identify patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They can write down triggers or keep an anxiety diary as a way to gain a deeper understanding of these patterns (Leahy, Holland, & McGinn, 2011).

3. Understanding maintenance cycles

Psychological formulation (Johnstone & Dallos, 2014) can help clients understand maintenance cycles of anxiety (i.e., how their anxious thoughts, feelings, and behaviors interlink to keep anxiety going). For example, the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy situational formulation cycle can be used as part of psychoeducation.

4. Building a toolkit of strategies

There are different types of tools that target different areas of the anxiety cycle.

Relaxation strategies calm bodily sensations, cognitive skills aim to shift anxious thinking, and behavioral strategies help to reduce safety behaviors.

Different tools work for different people in different situations. It can be helpful for clients to develop a written list or toolkit of strategies that work for them.

10 Effective Anxiety Management Tools

Here are 10 evidence-based anxiety management tools (adapted from Leahy et al., 2011; Westbrook, Kennerley, & Kirk, 2011; Kennerley, 2014).

1. Controlled breathing

Controlled breathing aims to reduce physiological symptoms of anxiety by regulating breathing. Controlled breathing involves breathing deeply into your lower abdomen for four counts and out for six counts, repeating for at least a few minutes.

2. Progressive muscle relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation aims to relax the muscles to ease the bodily sensations of anxiety, such as muscle tension. You tense and relax each muscle group in turn, working progressively throughout the body.

3. Calming imagery

Visualization is the idea of building an image in your mind of a calm, safe place (e.g., beach, forest, familiar place). This soothes the anxiety response and distracts from anxious thinking (Hart, 2008; Welford, 2010).

4. Distraction

You can distract your brain from anxious thoughts by refocusing on another activity. This strategy can also help clients feel empowered to use their existing strengths and interests as helpful anxiety tools, for example, doing an enjoyable hobby.

5. Thought challenging

Thought challenging involves identifying evidence for and against anxious thoughts. The aim is to weigh up this evidence and then reframe the thought as a more balanced view of the situation, moving away from anxious predictions. Use this Questions for Thought Challenging worksheet to get a balanced view on a situation.

6. Compassionate self-talk

Anxiety partly stems from self-criticism, such as believing that you do not have the ...

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