Let's Talk About the Anxiety Scale!
You're probably familiar with the Pain Scale. When you're experiencing pain, doctors ask you, on a scale of 1-10, how bad your pain is. I have anxiety (You can check out my Anxiety workbook here!) and I was looking for a similar scale. I didn't find one that perfectly fit what I needed so I decided to create one myself.
It can be really hard to describe your anxiety to other people. Most people understand anxiety on such a general level, but in reality, there are so many levels to what we feel, and that's why I wanted an anxiety scale. There are times when my anxiety is at its max. I'm feeling it in my chest, I'm having panic attacks, I feel like I can't move and I just want to cry. There are other times when my anxiety is there but it doesn't affect my life. It doesn't stop me from living my life even though it's there.
The scale helps me explain things. I can tell my partner, "Hey, my anxiety is at a 'four' today." and that means I need to focus on self-soothing and doing the other things that help me feel better. When we can define how we feel and why we're feeling it - we can come up with a plan to manage those feelings.
I put how I experience anxiety into five different categories - from minimal to debilitating and I described the symptoms I experience at each level.
If you don't have anxiety (or you'd like to customize what your anxiety looks like) there's a blank one that you can use to create a pain scale, a depression scale, stress scale, or whatever would be the most useful to you and your life!
Here's What's Inside!
- 11 page PDF (with a black and white version for easy printing!)
- My original anxiety scale
- A blank scale for you to fill out with your own symptoms
- The 'Feeling Better' Worksheet allows you to list what acts of self-care help bring down your anxiety at each level
- Two Affirmation Card pages
- A worksheet for each level 1-5, to describe triggers, coping skills, and how each level affects your life and relationships
