The one thing you will learn about beating anxiety is that it is all about conditioning. Just like your body is conditioned by exercise, you mind is conditioned by how you think. The way you think, the things you think, even the things you don't think have a huge impact on how your mind works.

Research is learning more and more about the way the brain behaves, and interesting new research on brain physiology is showing that the mind actually goes through a purging process of brain cells as you age, getting rid of "paths" in the brain that are infrequently used. The long and short of the research shows that your mind is actually being reshaped and restructured constantly based on how you think.

As you probably know, anxiety is a combination of the brain chemistry of those of us with a predisposition to it, and habit. There is little you can do about being predisposed to the condition--but you have complete control over the habit part. Every time you are confronted with a stimuli, and then worry, or don't worry, you are reshaping your brain to perform a certain way.

So let's consider this process and how you condition your brain. I had a friend who had a sister that lived about 20 miles away. My friend had a panic attack one day driving to see her sister, so she stopped driving to see her altogether. My friend lived close to work, etc, so she did not have to confront this fear unless she was making that long drive. And she decided to completely stop rather than go through the anxiety symptoms. If you are a chronic anxiety sufferer, this probably sounds very familiar to you. You probably recognize what happens then over time--anytime you have to do anything that would put you in this situation, you will find a way to avoid it rather than be put through the symptoms of anxiety and panic.

My friend was pretty good with this for a while--she got her sister to come to see her instead, and was able to forget about the whole thing. But then, she started to notice her shorter commutes, like the ones to work, were becoming difficult as well. Soon, just getting in the car would cause her to panic. Eventually, she felt like she couldn't drive at all without an anxiety attack.

When she started discussing this with me, I was able to, from my own experience, explain to her what she was going through and what she had to do to fix it. She had conditioned herself to think that the car ride was something she could not do without anxiety. The solution--fairly simple, even though it does not feel simple--is to condition yourself right out of the feelings the same way you conditioned yourself into them.

I worked with my friend to come up with a plan. We developed small steps to get her re-acclimated to driving. First it was simple things like being a passenger during drives to places that she thought scared her. Then it was making drives while talking to someone on the cell phone. She kept increasing the distances from literally a few minutes to longer and longer. And every step, she realized that first, she could do the thing she had to do that day, and second, that each incremental step built on the day before's progress, which she had been successful in.

It was not long before my friend, with the help of our plan, and some patience and perseverance on her part, is right back to driving to her sisters. And, more importantly, she now tells others with the same problem that this simple, step-by-step approach can condition the fear out of them just like it conditioned it into them.

If you suffer from anxiety, I can not stress enough the importance of this kind of plan, and writing it down is extremely important. Planning and executing the plan will show you that you are in control, it will help you visualize the steps to recovering your independence, and it will also put pressure on you to stick to the plan and not simply avoid what is bothering you.

Trust me, you can get over whatever it is that bothers you! Don't wait another day, start today!!

I Wish You The Best Of Luck!

John Tavern