1- Make a list of all of your week’s activity

2- Create small goals for your week to challenge your fears

3- Come to the PC and post……

(please number your tip(s) so we can keep track)

Faryal - Health Educator

It is often difficult to share the difficulties you are currently experiencing with friends and family. Many often debate as to whether or not informing family and close friends would be beneficial.

Remember, what you tell your friends and family is up to you. What you can say probably depends on what your friends and family are like. Some people may try to understand your problems and respond to you with support. Others may not understand and have trouble supporting your efforts to get better. Seek support from those who are most likely to give it.

If you decide to tell a good friend or a supportive family member about your anxiety, just tell them the facts. Tell them that you believe that you're struggling with anxiety and that you're trying to do something about it. If you've been trying to hide your anxiety from someone, sharing this information may help them understand your behavior.

If you tell them that you have a problem and that you're working on it, good friends and supportive family members usually want to know how they can help.

Tell your good friends and family that just knowing that they're trying to understand your depression and support you is important to you.

You can tell your supporters that they can help by learning more about anxiety. The more they understand it, the better they can help. If you're having trouble explaining how you're feeling, you may decide to point them in the direction of this Web site.

Below are a number of general suggestions for what you might say to friends and family members who want to help you cope with a depressive disorder:

·         Only offer to help me if I ask you.

·         Try to let me be in control of my treatment and recovery even if it seems that I want you to take charge.

·         Try to stay positive, and be patient with me.

·         Be prepared for my successes and setbacks.

We now invite the members of the group to share how they told their family and friends. We also invite any who may be struggling with this problem to share it among the group so that solutions may be brainstormed!

Faryal - Health Educator

This week’s challenge will pertain to anger…

Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems€”problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life. And it can make you feel as though you're at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion.

Like other emotions, it is accompanied by physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenalin.

Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person (Such as a coworker or supervisor) or event (a traffic jam, a canceled flight), or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems. Memories of traumatic or enraging events can also trigger angry feelings.

Expressing Anger

The instinctive, natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively. Anger is a natural, adaptive response to threats; it inspires powerful, often aggressive, feelings and behaviors, which allow us to fight and to defend ourselves when we are attacked. A certain amount of anger, therefore, is necessary to our survival.

On the other hand, we can't physically lash out at every person or object that irritates or annoys us; laws, social norms, and common sense place limits on how far our anger can take us.

People use a variety of both conscious and unconscious processes to deal with their angry feelings. The three main approaches are expressing, suppressing, and calming. Expressing your angry feelings in an assertive€”not aggressive€”manner is the healthiest way to express anger. To do this, you have to learn how to make clear what your needs are, and how to get them met, without hurting others. Being assertive doesn't mean being pushy or demanding; it means being respectful of yourself and others.

How often do you feel angry? Today we challenge you to keep count with a pen and paper. As you track, don’t forget to note the 5 W’s of your anger: Who was there? What happened? Where did it happen? And why did it happen?

Don’t forget to share your results and to pop in for part II!

Instead of a challenge, this week we will continue on with the same theme: anger. Today, we will be exploring a few more strategies and skills for anger management.

Problem Solving

Sometimes, our anger and frustration are caused by very real and inescapable problems in our lives. Not all anger is misplaced, and often it's a healthy, natural response to these difficulties. There is also a cultural belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to our frustration to find out that this isn't always the case. The best attitude to bring to such a situation, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how you handle and face the problem.

Make a plan, and check your progress along the way. Resolve to give it your best, but also not to punish yourself if an answer doesn't come right away. If you can approach it with your best intentions and efforts and make a serious attempt to face it head-on, you will be less likely to lose patience and fall into all-or-nothing thinking, even if the problem does not get solved right away.

Using Humor

"Silly humor" can help defuse rage in a number of ways. For one thing, it can help you get a more balanced perspective. When you get angry and call someone a name or refer to them in some imaginative phrase, stop and picture what that word would literally look like. If you're at work and you think of a coworker as a "dirtbag" or a "single-cell life form," for example, picture a large bag full of dirt (or an amoeba) sitting at your colleague's desk, talking on the phone, going to meetings. Do this whenever a name comes into your head about another person. If you can, draw a picture of what the actual thing might look like. This will take a lot of the edge off your fury; and humor can always be relied on to help unknot a tense situation. Changing Your Environment

Sometimes it's our immediate surroundings that give us cause for irritation and fury. Problems and responsibilities can weigh on you and make you feel angry at the "trap" you seem to have fallen into and all the people and things that form that trap.

Give yourself a break. Make sure you have some "personal time" scheduled for times of the day that you know are particularly stressful. One example is the working mother who has a standing rule that when she comes home from work, for the first 15 minutes "nobody talks to Mom unless the house is on fire." After this brief quiet time, she feels better prepared to handle demands from her kids without blowing up at them.

Some Other Tips for Easing Up on Yourself

Timing: If you and your spouse tend to fight when you discuss things at night€”perhaps you're tired, or distracted, or maybe it's just habit€”try changing the times when you talk about important matters so these talks don't turn into arguments.

Avoidance: If your child's chaotic room makes you furious every time you walk by it, shut the door. Don't make yourself look at what infuriates you. Don't say, "well, my child should clean up the room so I won't have to be angry!" That's not the point. The point is to keep yourself calm.

Finding alternatives: If your daily commute through traffic leaves you in a state of rage and frustration, give yourself a project€”learn or map out a different route, one that's less congested or more scenic. Or find another alternative, such as a bus or commuter train.

We now invite members to post concerns, questions or share their experiences. Have you had an opportunity to use of the strategies we’ve explored this month?

Faryal - Health Educator