CBT: The Anxiety Toolkit

Mar 25

Written By Dr. Amber Rexilius, PhD, LPC - Associate

Anxiety can start at a young age — whether it’s worrying about school, social situations, the future, or just feeling constantly on edge. Anxiety can steal our joy and become an obstacle to living our best life.

The Anxiety Toolkit - CBT

One of the most effective approaches to reducing anxiety is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It’s one of the most researched treatments for anxiety and focuses on something simple but powerful:

Change the way you think and act so your brain stops the anxiety cycle.

The Anxiety Cycle

Trigger → Anxious Thought → Physical Symptoms → Avoidance → Temporary Relief → Even More Anxiety Later

CBT Tools

Let’s break down some CBT tools that can help when anxiety starts.

1. Challenge Your Anxious Thoughts

Anxiety loves to twist your thoughts into worst-case scenarios.

Some common thinking traps include:

Catastrophizing: “This is going to be a total disaster.”
Mind reading: “They probably think I’m weird.”
Overgeneralizing: “I mess up everything.”

CBT teaches you to question these thoughts instead of automatically believing them.

Example

Anxious thought:

“If I mess up this presentation, everyone will think I’m stupid.”

Balanced thought:

“People mess up presentations all the time. One mistake doesn’t define me — it actually makes me more relatable.”

Your brain might still feel nervous, but challenging the thought weakens anxiety’s power. Self-compassion is a very valuable tool when challenging these thinking traps. Anxiety can make us want to become robotic and try to control every outcome, but perfectionism often causes us to disconnect more, resulting in increased anxiety.

2. Track Your Thoughts (Thought Records)

Sometimes anxiety feels overwhelming because your thoughts are racing. A thought record helps slow things down.

You write down:

What happened (the situation)
How you felt
The anxious thought
Evidence that supports it
Evidence that doesn’t
A more balanced thought

This helps you see that anxious thoughts are not always facts and are often temporary. I often encourage clients to do this in the Notes app on their phone so they can easily access the tool. It can also help identify triggers to the nervous system that start the anxiety cycle.

3. Face Your Fears Slowly (Exposure)

Avoiding things that make you anxious might feel good in the moment — but it actually makes anxiety stronger.

CBT uses gradual exposure, which means facing fears in small steps so your brain learns that the situation isn’t actually dangerous.

Example for social anxiety:

Make eye contact with someone
Say hello to a cashier
Ask someone for directions
Go to a small hangout

Over time, your brain learns:

“This feels uncomfortable, but I can handle it.”

Confidence doesn’t appear out of nowhere — it is earned through practice.

4. Test Your Fear Predictions

Sometimes anxiety tells you stories that aren’t true.

CBT encourages behavioral experiments, which means testing those fears in real life.

Example fear: “If I speak up in class, everyone will judge me.”

Experiment: Raise your hand once in class and see what actually happens.

Most of the time, you’ll realize the scary prediction wasn’t accurate but was actually the result of catastrophizing the future.

5. Calm Your Body

Anxiety isn’t just in your head — it affects your body too.

Common symptoms include:

Racing heart
Tight chest
Shaky or sweaty hands
Dizziness
Stomach aches

These symptoms are the result of the nervous system entering into a reaction state (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn).

CBT includes relaxation techniques to calm your nervous system, such as:

Breathing techniques
Progressive muscle relaxation
Grounding techniques
Cognitive scrabbling

When your body relaxes, your brain starts to relax too. Research shows that even moving slowly and intentionally while your nervous system is in a reaction state can help override danger signals and move your body toward a calmer state.

6. Ask: “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?”

Anxiety loves to exaggerate danger.

A CBT technique called decatastrophizing helps you challenge that.

Ask yourself:

What’s the worst realistic outcome?
How likely is that actually?
If it did happen, how would I handle it?

Most of the time, you’ll realize your brain jumped to a much bigger fear than the situation deserves.

7. Schedule Your Worry Time

If your brain worries all day, try this strategy:

Set a 15–20 minute “worry time.”
When worries pop up during the day, tell yourself:
“I’ll think about this later.”
Write them down during your worry window.

This keeps anxiety from taking over your entire day. This time can also be a good opportunity to journal about your day.

8. Do Things Even If You Don’t Feel Like It

Anxiety can make you want to withdraw — skip activities, avoid people, or stay in your room. I call this stage “cocooning.”

But doing small, positive activities can actually reduce anxiety.

Examples:

Go for a walk
Talk with a friend
Work on a hobby
Complete a small task

Don’t fall into the fear trap that convinces you the safest thing to do is cocoon. This temporary relief from fear often breeds more anxiety over time.