Overcoming Anxiety: Educational Psychology Resources for a Calmer Life

Anxiety and stress are emotional states that all of us experience at certain points in our lives, and they can significantly interfere with an individual’s mental health and wellbeing. This article provides several resources that explain the origins of stress and anxiety, as well as coping strategies from several therapeutic areas.

Although the terms stress and anxiety are often used interchangeably, they are responses that occur in different situations. Often, these fears are motivated by previously stressful events that individuals have been exposed to. In addition to the resources listed in this article, tracking your responses to situations that cause you stress or anxiety is a good starting point to identify where you are having difficulty.

Understanding Anxiety and Its Impact

Anxiety is a complex phenomenon with wide-ranging effects. Understanding its origins and manifestations is crucial for effective management.

The Nature of Anxiety

The Canadian Mental Health Association provides insights into the distinction between anxiety and stress. Anxiety often manifests as:

Categorizing the symptoms that someone might experience because of anxiety (e.g., worrying, avoidance behavior, or panic).

Academic Anxiety in Schools

The book Educational Psychology: Anxiety in Schools: The Causes, Consequences, and Solutions for Academic Anxieties addresses the specific challenges of academic anxiety. This resource likely delves into the causes, consequences, and potential solutions for anxieties experienced within educational settings.

Trauma's Impact on Learning

Students of Trauma: A Handbook for Classroom Teaching in an Environment of Suffering provides educators with real-world strategies for working with students who have experienced trauma and who express that trauma through depression, aggression, anxiety, hyperactivity, and suspicion.

Struggling learners are more likely to experience low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and behavioral issues--challenges that, combined with highly stressful learning experiences, can tip students into a trauma response that makes learning even harder.

Racial Trauma in the School System provides foundational and clinical information for school-based mental health professionals to better understand and address the nuanced experience of racial trauma in their school. The book focuses on conceptualizing racial trauma and the impact it has on a child's development and academic functioning, providing information on how to look at racially based experiences through a trauma-informed lens. This book explores the effects of trauma on newcomer students and presents stress-mitigating strategies that empower these multilingual students as they transition to a new environment.

Practical Strategies and Techniques

Several books offer practical strategies for managing anxiety and stress.

Simple Ways to Keep Little Things From Taking Over Your Life

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and It’s All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep Little Things From Taking Over Your Life by Richard Carlson (1997) provides guidance on managing daily stressors.

The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points

The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points by Alice Boyes (2015) offers strategies for managing anxiety.

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind by Judson Brewer (2021) explores how to break cycles of worry and fear using new scientific insights.

The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook

The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook (7th ed.) by Davis, Eshelman, & McKay (2019) offers practical exercises for relaxation and stress reduction.

The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity

The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity by Melanie Greenberg (2017) teaches how to master emotional responses to stress using mindfulness and neuroplasticity.

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson (2009) explores the neuroscience of happiness and well-being.

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The Anxiety First Aid Kit: Quick Tools for Extreme, Uncertain Times

The Anxiety First Aid Kit: Quick Tools for Extreme, Uncertain Times by Hanson, McKay, Davis, Robbins-Eshelman, Seif, Winston, & Karle (2020) provides quick tools for managing anxiety in extreme and uncertain times.

How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety

How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by Ellen Hendriksen (2018) offers guidance on overcoming social anxiety by quieting the inner critic.

The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You and How to Get Good at It

The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You and How to Get Good at It by Kelly McGonigal (2016) explores the positive aspects of stress and how to leverage them.

Taking Control of Anxiety: Small Steps for Getting the Best of Worry, Stress and Fear

Taking Control of Anxiety: Small Steps for Getting the Best of Worry, Stress and Fear by Bret Moore (2014) provides small, actionable steps for managing anxiety.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (3rd ed.) by Robert Sapolsky (2004) examines the stress-related ailments that can wreak havoc on an individual’s mental and physical health. It starts by describing the stress-related ailments that can wreak havoc on an individual’s mental and physical health.

Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear and Worry

Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear and Worry by Jennifer Shannon (2017) teaches how to break the cycle of anxiety, fear, and worry.

Be Calm: Proven Techniques to Stop Anxiety Now

Be Calm: Proven Techniques to Stop Anxiety Now by Jill Weber (2019) offers proven techniques to stop anxiety.

Practical Exercises for Stress Relief

Several exercises can help manage stress and anxiety in daily life.

Identifying Stressful Situations

This worksheet is an excellent starting point for individuals experiencing stress. It asks you to identify what life situations cause you stress and recognize how they may impact you.

Changing Physical Habits

Changing your physical habits is often the first step to relieving stress. This exercise gives you the opportunity to reflect on your current habits and question how they are affecting your daily life.

Recognizing Support Systems

Knowing what resources and individuals are in your corner can sometimes be extremely comforting. This worksheet provides you with an opportunity to relieve stress in a short time.

Improving Decision-Making

Decision-making is a practice that individuals experiencing stress and anxiety often struggle with.

Positive Psychology, Mindfulness, and Neuroscience

It also provides exercises in positive psychology, mindfulness, and neuroscience to give readers the tools to cope with stressful situations.

Additional Resources and Considerations

Stress-Management Tools for Practitioners

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others manage stress without spending hours on research and session prep, check out this collection of 17 validated stress-management tools for practitioners.

When to Seek Professional Help

It is also important to know when your stress and anxiety are becoming too severe for you to handle on your own. If you have been struggling for a long time or are having trouble functioning in your daily activities, seek the help of a trained therapist or counselor.

Creating Inclusive Classrooms for Introverts

Silent Talk: Setting the Stage for Introverts to Thrive in the Classroom and Beyond offers research-based strategies to create inclusive classrooms where introverts are as valued as their extroverted counterparts for their potential to learn and lead. In our extroverted school cultures of today, there is an emphasis on quantity of speech and constant social interaction, often leading introverted students to feel misjudged and overlooked.

Incorporating Neuroscience in the Classroom

Incorporating the principles of neuroscience not only transforms the practices that take place in the classroom but also empowers teachers, equipping them with the tools they need to feel and be successful in their work.

Fostering Effective Learning

In an attempt to foster effective learning for the students, educators and researchers have been examining the complex relations between psychological, biological, sociological, and cultural aspects of the educative process. The common goal is to promote deep learning and maximize the potential of next-generation students in constructing knowledge, understanding, supporting, and advancing skills in their chosen fields.

Strengthening Relationships with Teens

This book offers clear, actionable ways for parents and educators to create and strengthen relationships with teens during a key time of growth and development.

Understanding Children's Mathematical Understanding

Using straightforward, practical language, early math experts Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama show how learning trajectories help teachers understand children's level of mathematical understanding and lead to better teaching.

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