CBT Worksheets For Anxiety: Free ABC Anxiety Worksheet
There is a great deal of research showing that CBT is a helpful treatment for anxiety.
If you’re searching for a CBT worksheet, whether for yourself or your child, this page has what you need. It includes a free printable worksheet based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), one of the most well-researched approaches for managing anxiety disorders. It’s suitable for anyone aged around 9 and upwards, and it works just as well for adults.
The worksheet uses the ABC model, a core self-help tool from CBT that helps you slow down and look more carefully at what’s driving anxious feelings.
By gently examining negative thought patterns and unhelpful thoughts, you start to see how your thinking connects to the way you feel and behave. For many people, that moment of recognition is genuinely useful, whether anxiety shows up as panic attacks, constant worry, or something harder to name.
Working through it supports emotional regulation and, over time, contributes to better mental wellbeing.
You can download your free CBT worksheet below.
If you have an anxious teenager, take a look at my other set of anxiety worksheets which can be used in conjunction with this one.
Here is your Anxiety Worksheet
These three printable worksheets – including a blank worksheet for you to write in and two examples – are free, and perfect for homel use or cognitive behavioural therapy sessions.
Start challenging unhelpful thoughts, build resilience against anxiety disorders, and embrace self-help techniques for lasting change.
Understanding the ABC Model in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
The ABC model is a central part of cognitive behavioural therapy. It breaks the experience of anxiety down into three simple steps:
Activating event: the situation that triggers your anxiety.
Belief: your unhelpful thoughts or cognitive distortions about that situation, including any negative thought patterns.
Consequence: the emotional and behavioural response that follows, such as heightened anxiety.
Working through these three steps with this CBT worksheet helps you spot patterns in your thinking. From there, you can try a thought challenge, a process of questioning whether a worrying thought is actually true or fair. You can also build coping statements, which are simple, realistic phrases you can turn to when anxiety rises, such as “I’ve handled this before and I can handle it again.”
You may also see this CBT worksheet referred to as a thought record sheet. It is essentially the same thing: a structured way of writing down what happened, what you thought, and how you felt, so you can look at it more clearly and work towards your therapy goals.
How to Use This CBT Worksheet: Step-by-Step Instructions
These printable worksheets are straightforward to use at home or alongside therapy. Here is how to work through the ABC model:
1. Identify the activating event (A)
Write down what triggered your anxiety. This could be a social situation that felt uncomfortable, a low mood linked to depression symptoms, or something that might seem small from the outside but felt significant to you.
2. Record your beliefs (B)
Note down your unhelpful thoughts and negative thought patterns in that moment. Then use this as a thought challenge: ask yourself whether the thought is realistic, and try reframing thoughts by looking at the situation from a different angle.
For example, if the thought is “I’m going to say something stupid in front of everyone,” a reframe might be “I have spoken in front of people before and it went fine. Even if I stumble over my words, that doesn’t mean people will think badly of me.”
3. Examine the consequences (C)
Describe how you felt and what you did in response. Using the same example, you might write: “I felt sick with nerves and avoided answering any questions in class.”
Then think about coping mechanisms that might help next time, such as positive self-talk or coping statements. A coping statement here might be: “It is okay to feel nervous. I can handle this.”
TAKE THE QUIZ!
4. Plan your next steps
Consider some self-help techniques you could try. Here are some strategies I often recommend in my clinical practice.
Behavioural activation – in very simple terms – means deliberately aiming to do little things that lift your mood, even when you don’t feel like it.
Worry time means setting aside a short, fixed period to think about worries rather than letting them run all day.
Mindfulness exercises help you stay grounded in the present moment rather than getting caught up in anxious thoughts about the future. Simple examples include slow, deliberate breathing, a body scan where you notice physical sensations from head to toe, or the 5-4-3-2-1 technique where you name five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can touch, and so on.
Sleep hygiene refers to simple habits that support better sleep, which can have a direct effect on anxiety levels. Examples include keeping a consistent bedtime, avoiding screens for an hour before sleep, limiting caffeine in the afternoon, and making sure the bedroom is cool and dark.
Review and adjust
Look back at what you noticed and how things went. This builds your problem solving skills over time and helps with relapse prevention, meaning it helps you recognise early warning signs before anxiety takes hold again.
As you get more confident, you might move towards behavioural experiments. The idea is to approach an anxious thought the way a scientist would: make a specific prediction, test it out in real life, and then look honestly at what actually happened.
For example, if your child predicts “if I put my hand up in class, everyone will laugh at me,” you could agree together that they will try it once and then notice what really happens. Write the prediction down beforehand, record the outcome afterwards, and compare the two.
Over time, this process loosens the grip that unhelpful thoughts have, because the evidence from real life tends to be far less frightening than what anxiety predicts.
Exposure therapy works on a similar principle. You gradually face feared situations in small, planned, manageable steps so that your anxiety reduces over time.
Returning to this worksheet regularly will strengthen your mental wellbeing and self-awareness, contributing to a practical toolkit you can draw on whenever you need it.
Benefits for Anxiety Disorders and Beyond
Used regularly, this CBT thought record sheet can help to interrupt the vicious cycle of anxiety disorders, where anxious thoughts lead to difficult feelings, which in turn fuel more anxious thoughts. Over time, working through it builds emotional regulation skills (the ability to manage your feelings rather than being overwhelmed by them), and contributes to better mental wellbeing.
Many people find that with practice, panic attacks become less frequent and their coping mechanisms grow stronger.
The worksheet works well on its own, but you can also pair it with some of the other strategies mentioned above, such as behavioural activation, worry time, or mindfulness exercises, to build a broader set of tools.
Whether you are using it as one of your self-help techniques at home or working through it as part of therapy, it can support a wide range of therapy goals: building social skills or confidence, developing positive self-talk, and knowing exactly how to respond when anxious situations crop up. Small, consistent steps add up more than you might expect.
If you want to deepen your understanding about anxiety so you feel clear on exactly which steps will help for your child, consider our mini-course, Knowledge is Power!
Dr Lucy Russell is a UK clinical psychologist and Clinical Director of Everlief Child Psychology. She qualified as a clinical psychologist from Oxford University in 2005 and worked in the National Health Service for many years before moving fully into her leadership and writing roles.
In 2019 Lucy launched They Are The Future, a support website for parents of school-aged children. Through TATF Lucy is passionate about giving practical, manageable strategies to parents and children who may otherwise struggle to find the support they need.
Lucy lives with her family, rescue cats and dog, and also fosters cats through a local animal welfare charity. She loves singing in a vocal harmony group and spending time in nature.
