Quieting an Anxious Mind
Five cognitive behavioral tools for the weeks when worry runs the show.
- Written by Brett Larsen, MA, LPCC-S
- Grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- 15 minutes to read, tools you can use today
Worry has a structure, and once you can see it you can interrupt it. This guide shows you how the anxiety loop builds, then hands you five short tools, each under ten minutes, that Brett teaches in the first sessions with anxious clients.
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Open the guideOr call Brett: (513) 204-9295If worry has been running the show lately
- You wake up already braced, and the day has not started yet.
- Your mind rehearses conversations that have not happened and replays ones that have.
- You know the fear is out of proportion, and knowing does not make it stop.
- You have gotten good at looking calm while your chest is tight.
Less time inside the spiral, more time inside your life
See the loop before it closes
Learn the four moves anxiety makes every time, so you can name it early instead of getting swept along.
A thought record that fits on your phone
The single most-used CBT tool, rewritten so you can finish it in three minutes at a red light or before a meeting.
A two-minute body reset
A paced-breathing sequence that lowers physical arousal quickly, and the reason it works when "just relax" never did.
Know when worry needs more than a worksheet
Plain criteria for the difference between a hard season and something worth a call, without alarm and without dismissing it.
The approach has a track record
Nothing in this guide is a hunch. It is the same Cognitive Behavioral Therapy work Brett does in the room, trimmed to what you can start on your own.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most studied talk therapy for anxiety. A review of 269 meta-analyses found its strongest and most consistent effects were for anxiety disorders.
Hofmann, Asnaani, Vonk, Sawyer and Fang, "The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-analyses," Cognitive Therapy and Research, 2012.
People who practice CBT skills between sessions improve more than people who only talk about them. The tools in this guide are those practice skills.
Kazantzis and colleagues, meta-analysis of homework in CBT, Behavior Therapy, 2016.
Slow, paced breathing measurably lowers heart rate and stress arousal within minutes, which is why the body reset comes before the thinking tools.
Zaccaro and colleagues, "How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life," Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2018.
15 minutes, start to finish
- 01
How the anxiety loop works, in one page and one diagram
- 02
The three-minute thought record
- 03
The two-minute body reset
- 04
Worry time: a strange trick that gives you your evenings back
- 05
Facing the small thing first: a gentle exposure ladder
- 06
When to talk to someone, and what the first call is like
Written for people who
Notice worry taking up more room than it used to
Want something to try this week, not a lecture
Are deciding whether counseling is worth a first call
This guide is educational and is not a substitute for counseling or medical care. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
Brett Larsen, MA, LPCC-S
Brett has been a licensed counselor for 24+ years, holds independent licenses in clinical counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy, and completed 3,500+ psychiatric assessments in a hospital emergency department before opening this practice. He sees adults in person in Cincinnati and by secure video across Ohio and Kentucky. The guide is written the way he talks in session: plain, practical, and without judgment.
