I came up with a new way to combat AA, which I have field tested and found to be quite effective.
Most people try to calm down and relax, maybe distract themselves, or just go in for the plunge. I randomly came up with the idea of doing the exact opposite.
Basically I threw every mental panic and alarm switch I could. The theory here was that with enough things rushing through my head, approach anxiety would be overridden. i have dubbed it my "floodlight technique," since it drowns out what i'm trying not to focus on.
only other anxieties would drown out approach anxiety; i have had zero success with distracting myself with complex visualizations or intricate math problems or anything like that.
i addressed this in a field report:
viewtopic.php?p=259841#259841
does anyone have any thoughts on this? does it work for you? any other effective strategies?[/url]