Making Myself Better In A "Crisis"

1. Remind Myself It Could Be Worse- Making a downward comparision by comparing my situation to others or by thinking what could have happened puts my problems into perspective and lets me see how small they really are.

2. Remember My Body- Taking a 20 minute walk outside or dancing will boost my energy and dissolve stress. Watch what I eat and how much I sleep. When I'm anxious its easy to stay up all night crusing the internet and eating ice cream and that makes me feel worse in the long.

3. Do Something Fun-I need to majorly distract myself from stress and re-charge my emotional batteries with an enjoyable experience. I need to watch a funny movie, listen to my favorite music or work, not dwell on the stress.

4. I Need To Take Action-If I'm in a bad situation, I need to take steps to bring about change. I need toask myself," What exactly is the problem?"
~Triggers~ When I get angry I need to sit and think what caused me to get upset.
This does two things: It interrupts the downward spiral of emotions.
Secondly, if I identify the trigger, each subsequent time I will see it sooner and sooner until eventually it has no power over me.

5. I Need To Look For Meaning-I need to reframe an event to see the postives along with the negatives. Maybe getting fired leads me to move to the city I really wanted to live in. Maybe getting cancer strangthens your relationship with your friends and family. I dont need to be thankful for something bad, but I can see that even a catastrophic event has a silver lining.

6. Spend Time With Friends and Family- Strong social relationships are a key to happiness and when you have great friends and a great family, you never have to handle anything alone, but it also gives you the oppurotunity to help others not just ask for help and to have fun without worrying about my troubles.

7. Make Something Better-If something in my life has gotten worse, I need to make something else in my life better, and it doesn't have to be something important. I could clean a closet,organize pictures, cam, write do whatever. I want to not focus on my problems.

8.Think Of Ways To Help Others-it doesn't even have to be something personal with a friend, it can be as simple as giving away things to a charity.