The Anxiety Plan was developed by Tom Tomaszewski. It is free and relies on voluntary support. If it is useful to you, please consider supporting the work.
What the plan includes
Weekly Planner
A seven-day grid that lets you map out your week in advance — what you are doing, where, and when. Planning is one of the most reliable tools for managing anxiety. Seeing the week laid out reduces the feeling that things are out of control.
Emotional Snapshot
Each week, you rate eight primary emotions — Curiosity, Fear, Anger, Panic, Sadness, Care, Love, and Joy — as you feel them towards yourself, towards others, and as you feel them coming from others. Over time, this builds a picture of your emotional patterns. The tool draws on Jaak Panksepp's model of primary emotional systems.
Daily Log
A short daily record: what you intended to do, what you actually did, and one thing you shared with another person. Anxiety tends to tighten its grip in isolation. Putting something into words, to someone else, interrupts that process.
Interrupting the Loop
When you notice yourself caught between two impulses — to go, to stay; to speak, to stay silent — the interrupt exercise asks you to name both, and to ask what each one is trying to protect. You do not need to resolve it immediately. Naming the two voices is usually enough to create some movement.
Three-Point Reply
A structured approach to difficult conversations. Repeat back what the other person said, word for word. Acknowledge that they are not unreasonable to say it. Then state your own position — not as a contradiction, but as what you can see needs to happen. This sequence alone changes the shape of most arguments.
Freedom Index
A weekly summary drawn from your Snapshot data. It gives you a single readable code each week, combining your emotional balance, your sense of time, and your sense of space. Over weeks it builds a graph. The word freedom here means something specific: the degree to which anxiety is constraining your range.
Common questions
Is this a replacement for therapy?
No. The Anxiety Plan is a self-help resource. It is useful as a standalone tool for people who want to understand their anxiety better, and it is also useful as a between-session support for people already in therapy. If your anxiety is severe or persistent, please consider professional support.
Who developed it?
Tom Tomaszewski — UKCP-registered psychoanalytic psychotherapist, EMDR Europe Accredited Consultant, academic writer in private practice in Oxford and London. Tom chairs the Oxford Psychotherapy Society and the Oxford Neuropsychoanalysis group, and has clinical papers published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy and the International Journal of Neuropsychoanalysis. More about Tom.
Is it really free?
Yes, entirely. There is no charge, no subscription, no premium tier. If you find it useful, you can support the work — there is a link on every page — but this is entirely voluntary.
What happens to my data?
Your entries are stored in a private database associated with your account. They are not shared with anyone. No data is sold or used for advertising. The practice is ad-free and independently funded.
The plan is free to use. Create an account in under a minute.
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