Deciding to chat with an accountability partner once a week

I know I said there's no voodoo involved in these, but for me, these numbers are magic. As soon as I hit my second or third 8 count exhale, I can feel the relaxation inject itself into my bloodstream like I'm mainlining tranquility itself. The beauty of using this technique to cope with anxiety is that it's not an obvious one. You don't look like some tool sitting cross legged, touching your belly button, and exhaling ahhhhhhhhh with every outbreath. You can look like a tool on your own time. When you are in the middle of a coffee shop and you feel the monster creeping up, you don't want to worry about looking like a tool. You can use 4-7-8 without anyone else knowing. If anyone is looking at you close enough to notice that you are using a breathing pattern, then they are creepy and you should probably back away slowly. The elaboration likelihood model proposes that a persuasive message can influence attitudes by two different routes, depending on a person's motivation and ability to think carefully about the message. When people are motivated to think carefully about the message, they take the central route, basing their attitudes on argument strength. If people are less motivated, they take the peripheral route, basing their attitudes on emotional and other such cues. When people have the mental resources to think carefully about the message, they take the central route. If people are cognitively busy, they take the peripheral route. Persistence Attitude change produced by central-route processing is more durable and resistant to other influences than change produced by peripheral-route processing. Characteristics of the Source Learning Outcomes Identify the factors that influence who best delivers a message persuasively. Interventions Once the therapeutic goals have been set, there remains the question of how they are to be achieved.

For this, a behavioral therapist will suggest certain therapeutic techniques - interventions. These are often tailored for specific problems, like for example, exposure and response prevention for the treatment of OCD, or worry exposure if someone suffers from a generalized anxiety disorder. The CBT classics, that you will meet most often, you already know by now: confrontation of anxiety-provoking stimuli, cognitive restructuring, training of social skills, relaxation and mindfulness exercises. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Let's have a brief look at some of the things with which therapists came up in the last 50 years. Implosion is flooding, but with one difference: the phobic situation is only confronted in the fantasy. The imagined scene is drastically enhanced, so there's not only a spider shower, but it's more akin to I'm a Celebrity. Get Me Out of Here! Don't forget that this takes practice. The only reason that I can give myself a quick shot of relaxation in the middle of a stressful situation is that my body and mind have been trained to do so. You need to practice this often in non-stressful situations. When you are at home by yourself, right before you go to bed, in the car on the way to work. My suggestion when starting out is to practice this at least three times per week. Here's what a typical practice session looks like for me: I lie down on the couch and close my eyes. I let myself breathe normally for a few seconds and just notice the rate that I am naturally breathing. I feel the rise and fall of my chest as I start to slow my breathing down. Before jumping into the 4-7-8, I will usually do a few sets of 4-4-4 just to get in the mood. Then I will start my 4-7-8s and do this for as few as 5 minutes or as long as 15 minutes. Describe why persuasive impact can change over time. What's most important is: what gets the job done.

I don't think that the Democratic Party has a monopoly on good ideas. I think that the Republicans have a lot to offer. And what I will do is listen and learn from my Republican colleagues, and any time they can make a case that this is something that would be good for the American people, just because Democrats didn't think of it, and Republicans are promoting it, that's not a good reason not to do it. If somebody presents to me a plan that they are ideologically wedded to, but they can't persuade me that this will actually be good for the economy, then we're not going to do it. Then President-elect Barack Obama made this remark when asked about his willingness to incorporate ideas offered by the Republican Party into his plan for improving the U. And technically he is correct: Logic suggests that a good argument should be persuasive, regardless of who delivers it. Although this view is admirable, messages delivered by likable, attractive, powerful, and famous sources are more often met with approval than the same messages delivered by sources lacking these characteristics (Chaiken, 1979, 1980; French & Raven, 1959; The enhancement is the compensation for the fact that you can do this exercise while comfortably sitting on the chair in the therapist's office. THOUGHT STOPPING Technique for interrupting rumination. Clap your hands and shout Stop! Experts don't have to shout anymore, but stop themselves just by visualizing a Stop-sign. METACOGNITIVE TRAINING Made in Germany: classical cognitive therapy under a new trendy name. Metacognitive means thinking about the thinking. The special target audience: patients with psychosis or depression. PROBLEM-SOLVING THERAPY Try not to stress yourself out about the particulars. Don't make it an unpleasant experience, because then you will start to resent it.

Breathing is your friend. Remember that whole beating your brain into submission thing from before? Well the same thing applies here. Your body is going to resist you at first. You're going to feel like this is the most boring damn thing in the world and that you could really spend your time more effectively. Your mind will race and relaxation won't come easily. That's okay. Keep practicing. Whittler & Spira, 2002). Former President Barack Obama claimed at the beginning of his first term that he can be persuaded equally by Democrats and Republicans if the ideas are good. Research on persuasion suggests that it is often not this simple. How the message is delivered matters, too. Potential employers were more interested in hiring a job candidate when they heard, rather than read, a brief pitch by the candidate even though the content of the pitch was the same (Schroeder & Eply, 2015). Keep this in mind the next time you're applying for jobs. Even those brief elevator conversations can help convey a more thoughtful and intelligent person than can the written word. Communicator Credibility Messages are especially persuasive when they are delivered by a person (or a group) perceived to have source credibility--that is, someone who is both expert and trustworthy. Consider a study by Hovland and Weiss (1951). This is a kind of guided brainstorming about how an undesired as-is state could possibly be transformed into a desired should-be state. For the therapist, this can become hectic - he or she stands at the flipchart and has to quickly write down all the voiced ideas.

ASSOCIATION SPLITTING Another German thing - a relatively new technique for treating OCD. The aim is to weaken mental association chains like red - blood - HIV by training the brain for new, harmless associations such as red - love or blood - orange. This is done by reading those word connections over and over again, and visualizing them. SYMPTOM PRESCRIPTION Also called paradoxical intervention or reverse psychology. The therapist directs a patient to perform the problematic behavior. For example, students with procrastination issues are not allowed to learn at specific times. Once you forge those pathways and develop that muscle memory just like the basketball free throws, it will come so much more easily. This means that when you are first trying to learn a breathing technique, you need to put in a lot of work and practice as often as you can. Once you start to get the hang of it, you can back off a bit and just do some maintenance training every once in a while. I hope that once you learn this skill, you never have to use it during a panic attack or something. I really do. But if you do find yourself in that situation, believe me when I say that you will be thanking your past self for practicing when you did. The last thing I want to mention about breathing is another resource that is available for when you have a few minutes to really focus on your relaxation. There are a lot of great guided relaxations out there that walk you through different steps designed to bring you into a state of calm and relaxation. Guided relaxations (or guided meditations) can come in several forms including text, audio, or video. There are tons of great free ones on Youtube or through apps on your phone. Participants read articles that advocated various positions on different issues. For example, one article advocated that antihistamine drugs should be sold without a doctor's prescription.