How ANCHORING is key to Anxiety disorder self help:

Successful Anxiety disorder self help will involve NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) techniques. So it's useful to know a bit about them:

In NLP a stimulus that triggers a physiological state , is called an ANCHOR.
These ANCHORS could be perceived by any of the 5 senses:
a smell, a touch or the feeling of something, a taste, a sound (words/tone of voice), or an image.

For example, listening to a certain song that reminds you of an enjoyable occasion or event, can bring on a rush of positive feelings.

In terms of our fight or flight response- anchors are very useful: for example, "red" means STOP  and "Smoke" means FIRE.

But a lot of the anchors we respond to unconsciously, may actually HINDER us, if they are prompting us to go into certain states at inappropriate times.

So we need to learn how to create NEW ANCHORS in order to ANCHOR NEW STATES.
Anchors need to be UNIQUE (not used for any other states) to the state we want to create, for rapid state management

How do we create anchors?
Well, we need to be in an intense state, when the body and mind are both involved together, and a SPECIFIC stimulus is consistently and simultaneously provided at the PEAK of the state- so that the stimulus and the state become NEUROLOGICALLY LINKED.(Just like Pavlov's dog!).

Then anytime we provide the stimulus, we automatically get the intense state!

Typical examples of Anchors are the clenched fists and the "pump action" of their arm/s used by some tennis playes when they score a critical point in a tennis match.

You can easily observe that they are in a PEAK emotional and physiological "state" and they then ANCHOR that state with that SPECIFIC arm movement.

You will notice that they repeatedly use this action in similar circumstances- embedding the Anchor.

You will then also notice how they use the same Anchor when they are "mustering their resources" when they are trailing by a few points. (Observe Lleyton Hewitt in action).

In terms of Anxiety disorder self help:

Think about how you could use this technique to take yourself from an agitated or nervous state, to a relaxed state.
Use this technique to take yourself from depressed to "excited and motivated".