Coping with Anxiety: 10 Simple Ways to Relieve Anxiety, Fear, and Worry

by Edmund J. Bourne, Lorna Garano

These immediate, user-friendly, and effective strategies are designed to help you overcome anxiety. They include step-by-step exercises that you can do in the moment without having to understand the subtleties of the most often used therapies for treating anxiety.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Mental Health, Health, Audiobook, Social Work

150 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2003

Reviews

[Tree · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book for finding help to cope with anxiety. It was a short book that helped me learn more about the forms of anxiety and how they may present themselves. The coping exercises helped me a lot and let me learn that there are other ways, besides medication, to help calm my anxiety. It was hard to read cause it wasn't thrilling material, but it was full of information, methods, and suggestions and were very rewarding to me.

[Sienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who struggles with anxiety far more frequently than I'd like to admit, I actually thought this was quite good. Bourne and Garano take a holistic approach to dealing with worry that is intuitive and helpful in large part because it is so rooted in common sense. Its effectiveness presumably is dependent on the reader. There's little in this slender book that you can't figure out on your own, but I suppose anyone who's got it all down already isn't suffering from anxiety issues. It makes for a compact, straightforward reminder.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily digestible and actionable tips for helping anxiety. Highly recommend.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really straightforward techniques on how to get in control of worry, it was a fast read and contained a ton of good tips on how to set healthy coping habits. In short, there is no magic cure for anxiety, but there are ways to help shift negative toxic thoughts to more positive affirmations.
It's definitely a book I can see myself going back to when I need help with my anxiety.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read, with oodles of good ideas and pointers for getting through periods of anxiety. If you ever suffer through difficult times where your worrying brain gets the best of you, I recommend you pick this one up.

[Natalie Cardon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really helpful and sensible little book.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, helpful things in here. Obviously not everything works for everyone, but they throw plenty of coping ideas at you and a few are bound to work.

[Gwen - Chew & Digest Books - · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd call this an excellent "for Beginners" book. While all of it was a retread for me, Bourne sometimes explained things better than I had gotten from other sources.

[Randall Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very short and practical book about a variety of techniques for trying to cope with anxiety. Not all of the chapters resonated with me - the one on exercise felt very generic, and seemed like it was written by someone who had little or no experience with aerobic exercise. I also felt that chapter on nutrition was pretty generic as well, and the authors suggested some things for which I think there's little scientific support. That said this book does offer a fairly long and complete menu of coping techniques, with what I thought were brief, but helpful, descriptions of what's involved in each technique. So overall, I would recommend this book if you're unfamiliar with anxiety coping techniques and are looking for a good place to start.

[Haru Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe the book will help a lot of people to copy with the anxiety and know more about what is the definition of anxiety. I figure out that there are a lot of efforts spent to research about anxiety in order to help people out. Anxiety is not simple as I thought before and it can leave serious consequences if we do not know the proper treatments. It also gives us a logical look and let us understand more about the feelings of people with anxiety.

[Laura Reilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t like this book much. Found a lot of the advice generic and found more insightful advice in a BuzzFeed quiz. It’s laid out in clumps of advice but the other chapters are referred to often and specifically, so you kind of have to skip around the book a lot to understand the advice. The advice, which again, is pretty common knowledge generalizations.

[Frida · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Bourne succeeds here in covering a lot in just a few short chapters. Several helpful coping strategies and exercises. Just what I was looking for. Although I have a feeling he veered slightly off science in the nutrition chapter so be warned.

[Sylvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found some useful advice at the beginning, but the further into the book, the more annoyed I was. How to deal with anxiety? - do sport, have a hobby and eat well. What a mystery. How come nobody has ever thoght about it before?

[Myla Perrelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really informative, helpful and straight to the point.

[Leslie Jonsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, non-medication oriented suggestions are in this book designed for improving anxiety in social situations. A great read.

[(╯`▭´）╯︵ ǝɔnɒꓷ · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5*

This was just a quick little book that had a few tips that I might use in the future.

[Dez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The deep breathing exercise was useful. Also liked the discussion on various herbs to treat anxiety.

[Suraj · Rating 4 out of 5]

very practical book. came recommended through Kevin Cox - GE's Chief HR officer

[Michelle Martini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful, practical information. Not much analysis - more examples of self-talk and pragmatic step-by-step practices.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nice, quick reference for coping skills and different steps to work through anxiety. I think this is good to have on hand to refer to as you work through anxiety. There are some good resources in the back of the for further reading on specific areas.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

This little book, at 150 small pages in roughly quarto size, lives up to its name, when you take it at its word. This is not a book about dealing with the root causes of anxiety, nor is this a book about placing the blame for anxiety on anyone or anything, nor is this even a book about those who deal with serious and crippling anxiety, for which the authors recommend professional help. No, this is a book about coping with anxiety, dealing with the symptoms and making the best of it. While the book does have some notable stumbles in that it adopts a very Eastern religious view involving transcendental meditation, yoga, and jokes about reincarnation and faddish advice about choosing a vegetarian diet, there are useful techniques in this book, and one should view this book not as a manifesto on how one lives one’s life, but rather as a source of techniques for how to cope with anxiety in day-to-day life, which can be taken or left depending on the interests of the reader. There is plenty to take and plenty to leave here, to be sure.

The contents of the book are well organized. The chapters of the book are as follows: relax your body, relax your mind, think realistically, face your fears, get regular exercise, eat right to be calm, nourish yourself, simplify your life, turn off worry, and cope on the spot. The advice the book gives fits into these various unequally sized chapters. If one could do those ten things, to be sure, a great deal of anxiety would be removed. The active and passive muscle relaxation techniques are sound, the substitution of anger for anxiety makes for a dangerous but perhaps expedient solution, and the advice of the author to take certain herbs for relaxation as well as the transcendental meditation that the author recommends are potentially deeply dangerous. That is the general range of advice that the book provides, ranging from some things that are harmful, to a great many more that could be useful on a tactical level but need to be considered from a larger and strategic and long-term perspective, which this book would implicitly disregard since its focus is on tactical coping rather than strategic managing, and contains some advice about limiting or avoiding caffeine and seeking a regular sleep schedule that appear as no brainers.

Given the large burden of people suffering from anxiety in this particular culture, this book has a large potential audience. As is the case with many books of its kind [1], it is a sort of opening wedge to adopt various heathen ways of relaxation based on the Buddhist religion that have been adopted into Western culture via New Age practices. Whatever lip service the book gives to higher power, it does not have a biblical mindset in mind, and therefore is at best of limited profit, to be used in a limited fashion and with caution and careful consideration rather than wholehearted adoption. Even so, despite its limitations, it is a book that means well and is sincere in its approach and one that offers sound advice at least in part, and one that is of at least some use for those who wish to live less stressful lives by managing their lives more effectively in the face of contemporary pressures.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

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https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress...

[Daniel Seifert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coping with Anxiety is a handy, practical resource for someone interested in overcoming and coping with general and/or specific anxiety at any level whether periodic or clinical. It is a pragmatic resource for the helpee and the helper, the practitioner who seeks to offer a useful text to a client (bibliotherapy), a group or simply as a go to reference in one’s library. I highly recommend this to social workers, life coaches, chaplains, pastors, teachers and caregivers. This practical usefulness includes reflection activities, skills practice and other homework activities that would assist the committed person whether in a helping or care giving relationship or one seeking to overcome anxiety in their day-to-day life.

The text provides a host of applied and grounded advice for anyone who experiences everyday stress, tension, work-place anxiety, family or other relational issues where anxiety has become a part of the functioning as well as clinically diagnosed patients. Many of the strategies are evidenced based and some come from rich traditions that teach practices that offer self-caring support.
This workbook incorporates various mindfulness techniques as practices for cultivating improved functioning. It reinforces reality thinking versus distorted thinking and provides descriptions to support tackling phobias by way of exposure therapy and imagery.

In the final section, the workbook covers self-care topics in concentrated areas of the human body, viz., eating, sleep, exercise and recreation.

I am enjoying it as a handy reference to prepare for recommend homework assignments, coping strategies and sections to reflect on with my clients as a practitioner.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this one 10 or 15 stars I would. What a great book!

I am currently doing a study of anxiety-related coping mechanisms. This book has some new things that I have not come across elsewhere. Most books suggest that you examine your thoughts and ask yourself “what is the likelihood that this bad thing will happen or that this bad thing is true?” This one points out that instead of that you might want to ask “is this thought helpful?“

I’ve been frustrated with asking if a fear is true because it’s naive to think the answer is always no. Some people DO have terminal diseases, some people ARE about to be fired, some people ARE about to lose their home or go bankrupt. It seems to me that coping mechanisms that assume people with anxiety only have baseless fears is disrespectful to the reader.

But asking “is this thought helpful?“ Is brilliant because even if a thought is true it may not be helpful.

Another thing I like about this book is that it has an adequate number of examples about what you’re supposed to do as opposed to just giving examples of the kinds of self talk you need to avoid. Other books I’ve read recommend that you find a better or more positive thought than the fearful thought you were thinking, but they don’t make a lot of suggestions as to what those thoughts might be. This book contains lots of suggested statements to serve as examples of the kinds of statements you could use for general counterpoint arguments against common anxiety thoughts.

In general I would say that this book seems to offer more practical help than many others that I’ve read during this research project.

[Terry Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book from goodreads. The following is my review.

There a lot of helpful techniques in this book to help you relax and cope with anxiety . However there is no gold stand and so not everyone will benefit from them, especially if they don't do them correctly. I did find the breathing exercises very relaxing . While you don't have to suffer from anxiety or stress or fears to benefit from this book, it is a nice book to reference if you need help with those.

I am not quite in agreement with the nutritional advise and would suggest checking with your physician first.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm ambivalent about this one. The first 2-3 chapters were very helpful and had a lot of good information about breathing techniques and muscle relaxation. But the chapter on nutrition was actually pretty bad and included recommendations that are considered to be "quackery" by most medical and nutrition professionals. This book is geared mostly towards people with severe anxiety disorders so I'm finding myself skimming over a lot of parts.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my "go-to" book when my anxiety starts acting up. It's simple, concise, and easy to understand. It provides a well-rounded solution to anxiety using cognitive, situational, behavioral, and clinical approaches. It's basically everything you could learn from years of therapy in one little book.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really learn anything new from this book. It was simply a rehashing of things I've been told hundreds of times. This may be helpful to those who are starting their search for coping methods, but it just wasn't very useful to me.

[D.H. Hanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reread for me since it's been a few years since I first read it. When I initially read this it was before I'd been diagnosed with having anxiety. A lot of what is in here is what my therapist worked with me on so it's great having a reminder of what I can do when that flares up.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My anxiety disorder is a part of my life and in the depth of it I needed this guidance! It is a fabulous book!!!!

[Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If the worst happens, what could I do to cope."