I found an article related with personality chapter. If the spectre of swine flu has made you anxious, consider the big picture, says Martin Antony, president-elect of the Canadian Psychological Association."Put it in a broader perspective," the psychology professor at Toronto's Ryerson University says. Every year 700 to 2,500 Canadians die of influenza, according to Health Canada estimates, but an estimated 45,000 die from smoking-related diseases.A huge percentage of Canada's 33 million-plus population have colds at any one time, he continues. It is a thousand times more likely that a cough is just a cough than swine flu, according to Antony.To ease swine-flu anxiety, make the distinction between the public health risk and personal risk."The statistical risk is very, very low that one of us will get it," Antony says.
Unless health officials deem otherwise, don't feed your swine-flu anxiety by avoiding socializing and public places. Relaxation therapy, meditation and physical exercise all help to reduce anxiety, he says.Antony has spent the past 20 years studying anxiety. He is the author of more than 20 books on the topic. The most recent is The Anti-Anxiety Workbook, co-authored with the University of Houston's Peter Norton. Antony is the director of research at St. Joseph's Healthcare's Anxiety and Treatment Centre in Hamilton.Anxiety is an emotion based on a response to some future event such as an exam, Antony says. Fear, however, is a response to an immediate threat such as a charging bear.
All of us have anxieties, he says. An estimated six million Canadians have clinically significant anxiety disorders, according to Antony, citing recent Statistics Canada surveys and U.S research.While there is more evidence of anxieties now, that doesn't necessarily mean there is a jump in the numbers, Antony says. "It's hard to know whether there's an increase or whether people are more aware."
Anxieties can negatively affect employment, education, relationships and social interactions, he says. He has had a patient who feared contagions so much that she insisted family members immediately change their clothes on coming into the house. Others are afraid to cook for their families, fearing they are contagious.Anxieties are highly treatable using cognitive therapy, according to Antony. Cognitive therapy involves changing people's beliefs from the negative and unrealistic to the realistic, he says. "It's all about questioning [your] thoughts."
If, for example, you're anxious because not everyone likes you, Antony would point out how impossible it is to be universally liked. Even Mother Teresa wasn't liked by all, he says. If your anxiety centres on one person, ask "what does it matter if he/she doesn't like me?"In the case of a 23-year-old obsessed with dying of a heart attack, the psychologist discussed the probabilities of healthy 20-somethings dying that way. Fear of flying is a common anxiety. The best way to get over it is to climb on airplanes until the anxiety disappears, Antony says.Antony admits to some old anxieties himself. The prospect of public speaking made him anxious, but he overcame it through exposure, as his job requires frequent public presentations. He wasn't comfortable with snakes but knew he had to treat those with a snake phobia. Ahead of the sessions, he spent time handling the snake on his own before exposing it to the patient."Generally what we want to do is keep things in perspective and do the things that make us anxious," he says. I think fear happened because of perspective.
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