Sometimes it is helpful to take a little time to analyze things and write your thoughts down. Anxiety worksheets are a great way to do that. Coping skills for anxiety worksheets can be a little difficult to find though, often behind an account subscription or paywall.
You can comb the internet for yourself if you want, or you can just use the worksheets I found when I combed the internet for you and the clients I work with in therapy. There are a ton of great resources out there. This list is not comprehensive by any means but is a great start to using worksheets to help you manage your anxiety.
After all, writing things down is one of the best ways to process through things. It requires different parts of the brain, from the fine motor skills required to language comprehension, to the way seeing your writing on a piece of paper gives you a visual to remember.
Below is my recommended list of helpful coping skills for anxiety worksheets to help you take a closer look at how you can use coping skills to help relieve anxiety.
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Coping Skills for Anxiety Worksheets
What is Anxiety?
Despite its newly found place in the mental health spotlight, anxiety is more than just a mental illness. While it is a diagnosable, treatable illness, anxiety is also an emotion; a feeling of nervousness and uncertainty.
Everyone experiences the emotion of anxiety from time to time, but not everyone has a diagnosable illness. Anxiety becomes an illness when it gets in the way of living the life you want to live. When worries and concerns get in the way of being able to work, maintain relationships, or engage in hobbies, that is when they start looking more like an illness than a common emotional response.
If you are interested in the criteria that professionals look for to make a diagnosis, check out this article about it. However, you do not necessarily have to be diagnosed to know that your concerns are getting in the way of living the life you want to live.
Regardless of whether you are feeling anxious or have anxiety, therapy and coping skills can help. You can find a licensed professional on PsychologyToday if you are interested in therapy.
If you just came here for some coping skills for anxiety worksheets and not to find a therapist, check out the tried and true, curated list below.
Helpful Coping Skills for Anxiety Worksheets
#1: Therapist Aid Coping Skills
This 2-page resource from Therapist Aid gives detailed instructions for 4 coping skills that help with anxiety. As far as coping skills for anxiety worksheets go, this is more of an informational handout than an actual worksheet.
There is no need to write anything down on it–there is not really anywhere to do it even if you wanted to. But it is a great handout with easy to follow instructions for 4 effective coping skills.
The included coping skills it references are:
- Challenging Irrational Thoughts
- Imagery
- Deep Breathing
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Each of these is a tried and true coping skill that people have used in the face of anxiety for decades. If you have wanted to try any of them, this is a great resource for learning how to use them.
For another great resource with info on 10 coping skills you might not have already tried, read this article I wrote all about coping skills for anxiety. The ones listed in the Therapist Aid coping skills for anxiety worksheets are a little more common, but that does not mean they are not effective. It is helpful to try a number of different coping skills so that you can figure out what works for you.
Click here for the Therapist Aid Coping Skills for Anxiety Worksheets
#2: PositivePsychology.com’s Reverse the Rabbit Hole
More of a true worksheet, this Reverse the Rabbit Hole worksheet from PositivePsychology.com is a simple way to get a handle on the downward spiral of anxiety-driven thoughts. If you experience anxiety, you have almost definitely experienced the way that one negative thought quickly leads to another.
This anxiety coping skills worksheet directs you to push against the impulse to continue on the downward trend. For every negative outcome you think of or consider, this worksheet gives you the space to write down a positive outcome.
Sometimes all it takes to snap you out of a negativity binge is reminding yourself that there are other options. Thinking of all the negative possibilities is a natural protective step that our brains take to keep us safe, and sometimes we have to remind our brains that positive outcomes are possible too.
Click here for PositivePsychology.com’s Reverse the Rabbit Hole Worksheet
#3: PositivePsychology.com’s Tackling Anxious Thoughts Worksheet
Increasing in complexity, PositivePsychology.com has another excellent option for coping skills for anxiety worksheets in its Tackling Anxious Thoughts worksheet. Three pages long, it gives the instructions you need to be able to fill it out and goes a lot more into depth about anxiety and working with anxious thoughts.
While this anxiety coping skills worksheet contains some similar elements to the Reverse the Rabbit Hole worksheet before, it gives you more of an introduction into the skill as well as analyzing what follows.
Taking a little more time to cope with your anxiety as you experience it can help you achieve better long-term results. As you practice coping with this worksheet, you will be able to incorporate the skills it teaches more firmly into your routines and life.
Rest assured that the increase in complexity is not an increase in difficulty. This worksheet is just as doable as the one before, it will just take you a little more time. Because it is a little more complex, it can also be a little more rewarding.
Click here for PositivePsychology.com’s Tackling Anxious Thoughts Worksheet
#4: Get Self Help’s Overcoming Avoidance Worksheet
Distraction can be a great coping skill for anxiety–especially when caught in a vicious tirade of negative thoughts that just will not leave you alone. Sometimes distraction is exactly the thing you need!
The only problem with distraction is that there is a very fine line between it and avoidance. It is okay, helpful even, to check out for a bit so that you can come back to things with a fresh perspective. The problem comes in when you never go back to things because you have switched from distraction to avoidance.
Avoidance gets in the way of accomplishing your goals, solving your problems, and getting on with your life. When we avoid we do not progress at the same rate we would otherwise, if at all.
However, avoidance and anxiety often go hand in hand. It is natural to avoid the things that stress you out. The thing is, a lot of things in life are stressful. Eventually, too much avoidance of stress leads to too much avoidance of life.
That is where Get Self Help’s overcoming avoidance anxiety coping skills worksheet comes in. It will help you identify something you have been avoiding that you would like to address, and walks you through each step to do so.
Click here for Get Self Help’s Overcoming Avoidance Worksheet
#5: PositivePsychology.com’s Decatastrophizing Worksheet
PositivePsychology.com comes through again with another of their great coping skills for anxiety worksheets. One of the biggest causes of anxiety-driven thoughts and emotions is the tendency to catastrophize. Catastrophizing is the process of taking a problem and making it into the end of the world.
In grad school, one of my professors always gave the following as an example of catastrophizing: You realize on the way to class that you forgot your pen. Forgetting your pen means you won’t be able to take notes, which means you won’t pass the exam, which means you won’t graduate, which means you’ll never succeed in your career, which means you won’t be successful in life, which means you’ll never be worthy of love, which means you’ll die alone and unloved without a single accomplishment to your name.
Catastrophizing is a doozy, even if you do not take it as far as that example. It happens so fast, and it can be difficult to stop it before it becomes an all-encompassing problem. That is where PostivePsychology.com’s decatastrophizing worksheet comes into play.
If catastrophizing is something you find yourself doing, try using this anxiety coping skills worksheet to stop that process in its tracks. It helps you analyze your catastrophe and then helps you come up with alternative outcomes so you can let your anxiety rest.
Click here for PositivePsychology.com’s Decatastrophizing Worksheet
In Conclusion
Dealing with anxiety is not easy. These coping skills for anxiety worksheets will not necessarily get rid of your anxiety, but they will help you process through what you are experiencing so that you can begin doing things a little differently.
I recommend trying each one at least once so that you can get a feel for how beneficial it might be for you. Remember that the first time filling it out will be the hardest and after that it will get much easier.
Additionally, the more you use the worksheets the less you will need them. Eventually, you will be able to remember the steps on your own, which will help you work through your anxiety-driven thoughts and emotions even faster.
There are a lot of options for coping skills for anxiety worksheets out there, and if you have a favorite that is not on this list please feel free to link it in the comments down below!
Want to read more? Recommended articles below:
What is Self-Compassion? 3 Basic Steps to Help
What is Self-Care? Satisfaction, Relief, & Wonder
10 Effective Coping Skills for Anxiety
