Therapy for Anxiety
Anxiety is a very real medical issue with symptoms that are mental, emotional and physical. Mentally you may be constantly worrying or preoccupied with fear or thoughts of dying or never getting better. Your mind tends to go to the worst case scenario. Emotionally, you may feel uncertain, a sense of dread or a sudden fear of panic. Physically, you may experience a racing heart, shallow breathing, restlessness, achiness, dizziness or tingling sensations to name just a few. Both pain and anxiety affect the head and the body. All of us experience anxiety in our lives, but for some of us anxiety can feel more intrusive and begin to interfere with our lives especially during major life stressors like having a chronic illness, acute illness, chronic pain or any life transition. Often we tend not to think of ourselves as anxious until a life changing event and are life long coping mechanisms no longer working or we are unable to use them.
Symptoms of anxiety and panic:
- Nervousness, restlessness, or being tense
- Feelings of danger, panic, or dread
- A range of rapid breathing to shortness of breath
- Increased or heavy sweating
- Trembling, muscle twitching, tingling sensations
- Weakness, lethargy, fatigue, exhaustion
- Difficulty focusing or thinking clearly about anything other than the thing you’re worried about
- Insomnia
- Always asking "What Ifs" and going down the rabbit hole of negative thinking.
- Headaches, migraines, light headedness
- Dry mouth
- Feeling edgy, irritable, terse
- Indigestion, stomachaches, diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating, acid reflux
- Rashes and other skin breakouts
- Tension and tightness in jaw, neck, shoulders, grind teeth
With my therapeutic approach, I first teach mindfulness based relaxation skills to help you manage your physical symptoms of anxiety and awareness of anxiety in your body. Second, I teach Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (CBT) to help you manage your racing thoughts, uncontrolled worries and go deeper into your anxiety that keeps you up at night.
Therapy can help to uncover the underlying causes of your worries and fears, learn how to be calmer, look at situations in a new, less frightening way, and develop better coping mechanisms and problem-solving skills.
If you suffer from anxiety, I invite you to contact me today for a free consultation.