Coaching practices for How to Get Over Anxiety and Depression

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Get Over Anxiety and Depression, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Even once the worst of it passes, I can’t get back into the room
• I’ve become so fused with the anxiety that I can’t get any distance from it
• I’ve got all these little rules that keep me okay
• I keep trying to feel better by piling nice things on top
• The voice in my head when I’m anxious is brutal

Practices that may help

1. Exercise for Mental Health
   Regular aerobic and resistance exercise reliably reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety and lifts mood — an effect supported by randomized trials and large reviews. It is a wellbeing practice that complements, not replaces, professional care for diagnosed conditions.
2. Engage with the present moment
   Once the edge comes off, redirect attention fully into an activity or your surroundings.
   The DARE Response to Anxiety, Made Practical
3. Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
   Problem-Solving Therapy (PST), developed by Nezu and D’Zurilla, treats depression and anxiety by building structured, step-by-step problem-solving skills — targeting the learned helplessness and avoidance that occur when people face stressful life problems without an effective coping framework. Multiple randomised trials support PST for depression, especially when linked to real-life problem load.
4. Use humor as a therapeutic distance-maker
   Practice narrating your anxiety to an imaginary sympathetic audience — make it funny.
   Logotherapy: Paradoxical Intention
5. Drop the safety behaviors
   Let go of the small avoidances and crutches you use to feel "safe" from anxiety.
   The DARE Response to Anxiety, Made Practical
6. Practising ataraxia: removing sources of anxiety
   Identify and address the sources of background anxiety rather than adding pleasures on top of them.
   Epicurean Philosophy: Practical Happiness
7. The Anxiety Toolkit, Made Practical
   A practical anxiety toolkit pulls together a handful of evidence-informed skills — grounding, breathing, interoceptive awareness, behavioral experiments, and balanced self-talk — so you have the right tool for the moment instead of one move for every situation. Several of these rest on solid clinical and experimental support. They are self-help skills for everyday stress and anxiety; for severe or persistent anxiety, use them alongside professional care.
8. Balanced, compassionate self-talk
   Talk to yourself as you would to a friend — accurate and kind, not harsh or falsely cheery.
   The Anxiety Toolkit, Made Practical
9. Track SUDs across sessions to see your own progress
   Record distress ratings before and after each session so progress is visible and motivating.
   Counter-Conditioning and Systematic Desensitization
10. Tai chi for anxiety and depression
    Three months of regular tai chi practice reduces anxiety and depression symptoms with effect sizes comparable to conventional exercise.
    Tai Chi: The Evidence for a Mind-Body Practice

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