# Build a personal calm-down toolkit for anxious moments

A pocket-sized toolkit of grounding, breathing, and thinking techniques matched to how anxiety shows up for you.

- Topic: Personal Life & Wellbeing
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Explain & Teach, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/build-a-personal-calm-down-toolkit-for-anxious-moments

## Prompt

```text
Help me build a personal toolkit for calming down when anxiety hits.

**How anxiety shows up for me:** [BODY - e.g. "racing heart", "shaky"; THOUGHTS - e.g. "what if..."; ACTIONS - e.g. "avoid", "check repeatedly"]
**Common situations:** [e.g. "crowded places", "before work", "at night", "after reading the news"]
**What's helped a little before:** [ANYTHING]
**What I can do discreetly vs. only in private:** [e.g. "I'm often at my desk"]

Create:
1. **Body tools (3):** e.g. paced breathing with exact counts, muscle relaxation, temperature or movement. Explain each in 2-3 steps.
2. **Grounding tools (3):** e.g. 5-4-3-2-1 senses, describing the room, holding an object.
3. **Thinking tools (3):** short questions or phrases to loosen anxious thoughts, written for my situations.
4. **Action tools (2):** small things to do instead of avoiding.
5. A one-screen "toolkit card" I can save on my phone: the 5 tools that best fit my answers, numbered in the order to try them.
6. How to practice these when I'm calm so they work when I'm not.

This isn't a replacement for treatment. If anxiety is frequent, intense, or stopping me from daily life, or I have panic attacks or chest pain I'm unsure about, tell me to see a doctor; for thoughts of self-harm, contact a crisis line (in the US, call or text 988) or emergency services.
```

## What to fill in

- ANYTHING
- e.g. "I'm often at my desk"

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.