Counseling for Anxiety

Everyone experiences stress and anxiety at some point in their lives, as it is a natural physical alarm of sorts that is designed to alert you to potential threats and prepare you to respond to demanding situations. Anxiety in small doses can help us focus, stay alert, problem-solve, and act quickly. However, anxiety becomes a real problem if your alarm system doesn't seem to shut off or if you experience a good dose of anxiety over a long period of time.

If left untreated, anxiety can make a real mess of your life - hurting your relationships, your work performance, or simply your ability to function through daily tasks and stressors. Anxiety can stem from many different sources including genetics, brain chemistry, levels of stress, or experiences of traumatic events.

What does anxiety feel like?

Anxiety shows up in many different ways depending on how your body responds to stress. Sometimes anxiety show up as constant worrying, irritability, fear of future 'what ifs,' need for control, or perfectionism. Anxiety is also rooted in physical symptoms like a racing heart, headaches, chronic digestive issues or nausea, numbness/tingling, tension, sleep issues, or fatigue. A few other ways anxiety has been described:

• Wanting to crawl out of your skin

• Like you can never catch a deep breath

• A short fuse or short temper

• Tears welling up right under the surface

• Constant tightness (jaw clenching, muscle tension, etc.) leading to exhaustion and headaches

How is anxiety treated?

Anxiety treatment will largely depend on your history and symptoms as well as your unique needs, so your therapist will tailor multiple theoretic approaches to best fit your symptoms and goals. Most treatment options will include evidence-based approaches like Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness, but will not be limited to one specific method. By including holistic and wellness-based models in treatment as well, you can experience a deeper healing to create a long-lasting changes that reconnect the mind, body, and soul. 

Is anxiety treatment right for me?

• Do you constantly feel on edge or like you're waiting for the worst to happen?

• Are you overwhelmed or exhausted?

• Do people often notice you are in your head and not present with them?

• Are you irritable and snapping at people you love?

• Do you often take control of tasks because you're afraid others won't do it right or carefully enough?

• Do you spend more time worrying about problems than you do taking action on solving problems?

• Do you procrastinate because you are worried about not doing a good enough job?

• Do you overthink all the possible scenarios of choices in order to make the right or best choice?

• Do you frequently overprepare or double and triple check your actions?

• Are you having difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep due to overthinking or feeling on edge?

• Do you excel at identifying every possible 'what if' or ways things could go wrong?

• Do you obsess about doing things right or perfect to the point of avoiding tasks or shutting down from overwhelm?

• Are you often overly fixated on replaying social interactions and thinking about how things could have gone differently?

If you answered yes to 1 or more of these questions, you will most likely benefit from therapy. With the right tools and professional help, you can find relief from your anxiety.