S-C-T-R Framework To Manage Anxiety
Using data to manage anxiety
Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist or a doctor, and thus this blog should not be treated as advice. If your anxiety is crippling you and interfering in your day to day life reach out for professional help.
Now that is out of the way, let us see how you can leverage this framework to manage your anxiety.
The framework is called S-C-T-R, which stands for Symptom-Cause-Thought-Response.
Symptom: It is your anxiety response, e.g. nail-biting, talking fast, sweating, shaking legs, eating fast etc.
Cause: The situation or the trigger is the source of your anxiety. E.g. You are asked to present your idea.
Thought: The underlying thought that triggers the anxiety response. E.g. What if people laugh at me.
Response: What you should do to tame your anxiety.
When we are anxious, our natural response is to act on the cause rather than the thought. Working on the cause will not tame your anxiety. Your response to your thought will.
Now how to use this framework.
The first step is to collect data and mind it this is the hardest part. This step requires deep introspection, which can be very hard but hang on using the following steps. You can quickly work upon it.
As a data science enthusiast, I would suggest using an excel spreadsheet for this exercise, but this can be done on paper also as the design is pretty simple. Refer the image below.
When you feel anxious, open this sheet and note down the cause (suggest keeping this sheet handy on your phone or google sheets). Then identify an exhaustive list of your symptoms like sweating, nail-biting, hair pulling, loss of sleep.
Once you have identified the symptom write down your underlying thought.
This underlying thought is the root cause of your anxiety, not the cause but the thought, the little voice in your head that says, what if I fail, or I will not make it, or what if it rains tomorrow and I could not reach on time. You have to capture these thoughts.
If you catch your thought, you will win half of the battle. Now it all culminates to the last part that is the response.
This response is what you can do to do to calm this thought. The responses can be standard, like deep breathing, noting down your thoughts, calling a friend and talking about it, or opening this sheet on your phone or computer and noting down what you are feeling. Do a worst-case analysis by asking this question what worst can happen, sometimes the reality is not that bad as it was in your head.
Most of the time, just being aware of your thought will do the job.
Now how to connect this with data. Every time you catch yourself anxious, you have to do this task, and it’s a bit intimidating, but it is not that tough. Treat it like homework.
With time, you will see your sheet and pick up patterns as you will find common thoughts coming up in your sheet repeatedly. Discuss these thoughts with people you love, care and respect. If you are into therapy, discuss them with your therapist. As I said earlier, just being aware of the thought will calm most of your anxiety.
I hope this helps you manage your anxiety.
I am open to discussion on suggestions and improvements of this framework. If this framework worked for you, reach out and let me know. You can reach out to me on my LinkedIn or E-mail.
