Hello, and welcome to Day 1 of our 14-day anxiety-reduction sprint. My job over the next two weeks is to be your guide, coach, and accountability partner. Each day you’ll hear one focused lesson, do one short experiment, and walk away with one practical skill.
The whole daily dose is designed to take ten minutes or less, so you can fit it into real life even on a busy schedule. We’ll start with self-awareness skills, layer in body-calming strategies, then practise facing fears in gradual, bite-sized steps, and finally wrap up with relapse-proofing. Think of it as building a mental fitness routine: small, consistent reps that strengthen your ability to handle anxiety rather than avoid it.
The structure is always three parts. First, I introduce today’s CBT tool and tell you why it matters. Second, I demonstrate how to use it, often with a quick story or example so it clicks. Third, you do a mini-task right now while I’m still with you—so nothing gets left for ‘later’ and forgotten.
By Day 14 you’ll have a personalised toolkit, a set of data points showing your progress, and a clear plan to keep the gains going. Ready? Let’s jump in.
Let me tell you about Sam—an entirely fictional client, but his story mirrors what many people experience. Sam’s boss emails, ‘Can we talk first thing tomorrow?’ Instantly a thought sparks: ‘I must have messed up; I’m probably getting fired.’
His heart races, stomach drops, muscles tighten. That’s the emotion-sensation corner lighting up. To escape the discomfort he opens social media and scrolls for an hour, then stays up late re-reading old work emails to hunt for mistakes.
That’s the behaviour corner. Next morning he’s exhausted, which makes his anxious thoughts even louder, and the cycle tightens. Nothing external actually changed—just an email, not a pink slip—but the triangle turned it into a sleepless night.”“Now imagine a small shift. Same email, but Sam catches the automatic thought and asks, ‘What evidence do I really have?’
He reminds himself that his last performance review was positive. The revised thought dulls the panic, his body stays calmer, and instead of doom-scrolling he closes the laptop, watches a light comedy, and sleeps. Same trigger, different triangle, radically different outcome. That’s what you’re going to learn to do, step by step
Hello and welcome to Day 1 of our 29‑day journey.
I’m Therapist in a Nutshell, and I’ll be guiding you every step of the way. Today we start with the simplest—but also the most powerful—tool in our entire program: noticing how you actually feel, in numbers you can see. Think of it like taking your emotional temperature.Why are we starting with measurement? When we’re living with low mood, everything can blur together. Bad days feel endless, good moments slip by without registering, and it’s hard to know whether anything we try is making a difference.
A daily “mood thermometer” breaks that fog. Research from shows that people who track mood become quicker at spotting dips and trying helpful actions sooner. It’s like catching a cold when it’s just a tickle in your throat instead of waiting for the full fever.Imagine a thermometer that runs from zero to ten. Zero means “my absolute worst imaginable mood,” ten means “I’m on top of the world.” Every number in between is a shade of how you feel right now.
Your mission right now is to create your personal Triangle Snapshot. Grab a notebook or open a note app, we’ll spend about three minutes on each side.
Trigger & Thought (3 min): Think of a mild anxiety blip from the past 24 hours—maybe getting a late-night text from an unknown number, or seeing a bill. Jot the trigger and the very first thought that flashed through your mind.
Emotion & Sensation (3 min): On the next line, list the feelings and bodily signals that followed: perhaps tension in your shoulders, a queasy stomach, or restlessness. Rate the intensity 0-100.
Behaviour (3 min): Finally, write what you did in response. Did you ignore the text, check it five times, snap at someone, eat comfort food? No judgment—just data.
When you finish, glance back at the three corners and draw arrows to show the chain reaction. That’s your living CBT triangle.
Recording the triangle does three things. First, it slows the process so you observe anxiety rather than drown in it—think of stepping onto the bank instead of being swept down-stream. Second, it externalises the swirl in your head onto paper, creating the distance needed for insight. Third, it produces baseline data. You can’t prove you’re improving unless you measure where you started. Anxiety thrives on vagueness; data makes it concrete and therefore changeable.
Great job completing Day 1. Keep today’s snapshot handy; we’ll build on it tomorrow when we explore how to identify triggers in real time. Bring the same notebook, and we’ll keep stacking skills. Until then, notice your triangle moments, and remember: awareness is the first step to control.
