You may be constantly worrying about how you come across, feeling stressed all the time, unable to relax and feeling tightness in your chest or always have an upset stomachache. I hear you, and I am here to help.
I am committed to helping people courageously change – feel less anxious, worried or nervous – through emotional awareness and resilience, mindfulness, and evidence-based practices.
Understanding Anxiety
A different way of understanding anxiety that has helped us over the years, and that is borrowed from theories of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), is understanding anxiety as an inhibitory emotion or protective emotion that signals to us when there is danger. This can be a real or imagined threat that comes from the mental, emotional, social, or physical environments. We have come to appreciate this perspective of anxiety because it helps explain its symptoms as a brain-based nervous system response to real or perceived danger – it is biological and not logical. Fear is a present, short-term adaptive response to an identifiable threat, whereas anxiety is a long-term set of reactions to a future threat. The constant heightening will almost always feel like too much.
Anxiety is also what the nervous system does when we are faced with something to overwhelming to feel. It’s a body resistance to a core emotion we may have learned it was not safe to feel. For example, if we grew up in a family where sadness was followed by encouragement to move on or get over it right away, we may have difficulty processing our own or others sadness. We may immediately feel anxious instead.
Symptoms of Anxiety
Anxiety can interfere with our ability to do daily activities such as going to the store, to work, or to visit with friends. Anxiety can also impact each of us differently.
- feeling worried or stressed
- feeling nervous, restless or tense
- feeling like your worries are out of control
- having trouble concentrating or paying attention
- overthinking and rumination
- being unable to relax
- withdrawing from friends and family
- difficulty getting to sleep at night or waking up a lot during the night
- racing heart, faster breathing, sweating, muscle tension, stiffness, butterflies in the stomach or jaw clenching
- panic attacks
- having the urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety
Ways to Cope with Anxiety
- For many people, anxiety increases when we’re overtired, not eating well or exposed to stressful situations. As thoughts become more anxious, it may be a cue to slow down, turn in and address your physical needs.
- Breathe paying particular attention to a long exhale.
- Slow down and notice sounds or other senses in the world around you.
- Put yourself in a peaceful place like a beach or calming room.
- Imagine your anxiety as a child part of you. Offer them comfort and use your imagination in any way to help the child feel better.
For some people, using these tips will be enough to manage symptoms of anxiety. But if anxiety is impacting your life and you are finding it hard to cope, then it’s a good idea to seek support from a counsellor.
Counselling for Anxiety
In counselling together we will track anxiety and sensations in the body. We practice anxiety regulation together in session to develop increased capacity to tolerate and contain complicated feelings.
Counselling might also involve:
- explore strategies to help calm the anxiety
- discuss the proactive basics: eating, sleeping and exercise
- explore things we can take off your plate or approach differently
- how to respond to yourself compassionately in moments of heightened anxiety
- get curious about our values and past: the responses tell us what is important to us and what we have been through
- nurture a different relationship with anxiety: witness and tend to the pain
- explore tolerable anxiety (a positive sign that feelings are rising) vs overwhelming anxiety
- identify the core emotion underneath the anxiety that may be trying to push up for expression
If you would like support to help your anxiety, please reach out here.
