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Self Help for Your Nerves’ helped me through a really tough time in my life. I bought several other ‘self help’ books during this time (in an attempt to avoid the inevitable trip to the doctor), but all of them seemed insincere, synthetic and unhelpful. Dr Claire Weekes’ book became a light in an interminable darkness. It gave me the courage to seek professional help for my anxieties and stress - for which I shall be forever grateful to her:
CBT is a type of psychological treatment that can help you manage your anxiety by changing negative or unhelpful thoughts and behaviour.
Claire B named her inner critic Frank and tells him to F**k off all the time, too - each to their own. With a friendly and comforting voice Claire Weekes goes through various symptoms of overactive nerves. She demystifies these feelings and the fear and shame surrounding them. Talks a little about why different bodily reactions happen but not too much. It's not about why your hands are tingling and shaking, and then judging and fighting that, but about knowing it's a natural reaction and you don't need to panic. The normal evolutionary animalistic first fear. You don't need to control or stop that - it is the fear of the fear that takes over our lives. Claire W is also an Aussie! Yay. And there is a new bio coming out about her. She must have been a breath of fresh air to patients.
I read this book during an anxious period and the simple and effective advice was something that was so easy to implement straight away and although it didn't solve all my problems (obviously), it did help me manage my symptoms of anxiety. My favourite thing, which sounds so silly but is so effective, is to imagine 'floating' when you are anxious about something. So if you're nervous about travelling, you just 'float' there. It sounds ridiculous, but there it is: it helped! She also urges the reader to accept their physical feelings of discomfort. They won't hurt you. You shouldn't try to 'fix' the problem causing them as this usually leads to more rumination and circular thinking which worsens your anxiety. Another piece of her advice was to get out of bed as soon as you wake up, but I'm still working on that one (thanks Reddit). Needless to say, I'm glad I still held onto it. I felt like I was able to better understand how to cope with a lot of things that I never knew how best to cope with. There are so many ways to look after your mental health and well-being that I have always had the tendency to overthink it. In the past year, I had been working on a lot of things I know needed working on (i.e. overthinking). Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and for what it read as. Largely common sense and parts of it were pretty eye opening.When practised with a therapist, CBT has been shown to be clinically effective in improving anxiety, low mood, stress and sleep problems, as well as many other mental and some physical health conditions. I am definitely not a stranger to anxiety and depression and so for a long time I have been actively searching for ways in which these 'illnesses' can be 'cured' or made less intense. This book has definitely helped me in the sense that it has given me a completely different perspective compared to what I had before reading this book. Stress and depression can cause you to be a lot less open minded than you perhaps used to be and being accepting of new ideas and view points may seem very daunting, however, when ideas are presented in this book Dr Weekes gives examples about how the sufferer may be feeling once presented with an idea (personally I found her to be pretty spot on) and so you are given a sense of relief that someone out there knows what you are going through and that she has helped many people in similar situations. You may find relaxation and breathing exercises helpful, or you may prefer activities such as yoga or pilates to help you unwind. Drinking too much caffeine can make you more anxious than normal. This is because caffeine can disrupt your sleep and also speed up your heartbeat.
Support groups can often arrange face-to-face meetings, where you can talk about your difficulties and problems with other people. Avoiding drinks containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, fizzy drinks and energy drinks, may help reduce your anxiety levels. Healthy living This is a book I revisted after two years. I have been recommended the book by an old lecturer/professor in my Mental Health Studies class at university. She said it was helpful for her own struggles and felt that I would appreciate it too with what we had discussed. Sadly I had never ended up finishing her copy and then when I got around to buying mine, I never ended up touching it and soon forgot about it.The next time you feel a spasm of fear, instead of shying away from it and trying to forget it or control and prevent it coming, as you have done in the past, I want you to examine it as it sweeps through you and even to describe it to yourself, noting in detail its various component sensations. When you do this, you will find that the wave of fear strikes hardest when it first strikes, and that if you stand your ground and relax, it quietens and disappears. When you have learnt to face fear this way, and see it as no more than a physical feeling, you begin to lose your fear of fear. You step outside a vicious circle. A spasm may come from time to time, but you learn to disregard it. Eventually it means so little that you hardly notice it in passing." I recommend this to anyone who suffers with anxiety, nerves, or is experiencing what seems like a ‘nervous breakdown’. Dr Weekes talks directly to you, the reader, and is endlessly sympathetic and encouraging. This is shown from the very beginning: In your tense effort to control yourself you have been releasing more and more adrenalin and so further exciting your organs to produce the very sensations from which you have been trying to escape." The guidance you need is in this small book. The perseverance and courage you can, with help, find within yourself. The strength to recover is within you, once you are shown the way. I assure you of this.” – Dr Weekes. One of the reasons for this is that some people find noticing their negative thoughts too intense, and it can make them feel worse. If you try mindfulness and still feel unwell, ask your GP or therapist about other things you could try.
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