An anxiety counselor can help.
Persistence isn’t always a good thing. Especially when it comes to anxiety. Persistent thoughts, worry, and fear can be problematic, even debilitating, if they go on too long. Persistent dread, suspicion, and irrational reactions to the people in your life can upset your relationships. However, persistence does pay off when you direct that disruptive, nervous, uneasy energy into anxiety treatment that works. How do you know when it’s time to seek help?
These 5 markers are key indicators that an anxiety counselor is likely the best next step:
1. You can’t stop thinking, rehashing and second-guessing
Healthy anxiety sharpens your focus, heightens awareness, and physiologically prepares your mind and body for fight or flight. Uncontrolled or extreme anxiety gets in the way of rational thought. Do your thoughts race and cycle unproductively? Perhaps you find that your ruminate unhelpfully on the past, examine every little nuance of your daily interactions, or overthink every decision.
Unchecked anxiety can cause your thoughts to move through your mind at a mile a minute as you try to cover all the bases and prepare for every possibility. Only to find that you’re robbed of the present moment as your current life slows down unbearably, paralyzed by worry and indecision.
How your anxiety counselor can help
Therapy is the ideal environment for developing awareness of your most troubling and automatic thought patterns. Your therapist is adept at helping you hone skills and techniques meant to challenge, reframe, and cope with anxious thoughts. With your counselor’s support, you can learn to be less judgemental of your thoughts, thereby releasing yourself from the anxiety shame generates. You can learn tools to recognize the thoughts that create or accompany stress and practice ways to manage them. Over time, your work with your therapist can help you uncover ways to cope and calm yourself that are mentally healthy and optimally productive.
2. You’re worried sick and fatigued by fear
When anxiety runs amok in your mind, it runs roughshod through your body too. Perhaps you’re aware of the connection and link your insomnia and migraines to your worries. Or maybe you’ve never linked your ongoing back pain or digestive trouble to anxiety.
Either way, it’s important to recognize that some of your most frustrating physical problems may be rooted in the way you process anxious thoughts or respond to anxiety triggers. What happens to your body when your thoughts are consumed by fearful “what if’s”? Is your jaw locked, your heart racing, your stomach churning? Your body is reacting and storing that tension. Without release, you can’t relax. If you can’t relax, you likely won’t sleep well, eat well, or feel well.
How your anxiety counselor can help
Working with a counselor who uses a body-centered approach can be a vital and invigorating part of treating your anxiety. Honing the ability to pay attention and tune into your body’s unique way of dealing with anxious thoughts and stressful situations can be very freeing.You can become adept at understanding how your body responds.
In fact, you can employ it as a tool to manage anxiety rather than feel you're stuck in a cycle of physically succumbing to perceived threats or potential problems. Calming your body with breath work, relaxation techniques, and mindful nutrition can be incredibly gratifying and may help you feel more confident about your ability to handle life challenges and uncertainty.
3. Your anxiety is getting worse without treatment
When you notice that you just can’t seem to do what you want to do without worry or debilitating disquiet, it’s up to you to stop the anxious slide. Sometimes it’s hard to tell ourselves the truth. Especially when it comes to mental health. There are stigmas, self-perceptions, cost concerns, even well-intended opinions that can hold us back from getting the help we know we need. But your life and mind don’t need to be held back by anxiety. The fact is, your anxiety is real. And real anxiety deserves real attention. Without it, your condition can worsen and do more damage to your life, health, relationships, and future.The beauty of anxiety counseling means you’re not on your own.
How your anxiety counselor can help
Once you accept the anxiety for what it is and decide not to avoid it, therapy can make a real difference for you. Treatment with an experienced, compassionate therapist provides a pathway to improving your condition not simply living with it. You can get better, you can think more positively, and you can overcome the overwhelm that keeps you stuck and worried.
4. Worry has become a relationship wrecking ball
Overwhelming anxiety and relationships do not mix well. How many times has your fear or worry caused you to strain the connection you have with a partner, loved one, or coworker? Anxiety often fuels suspicion, controlling behavior and distrust. Self-esteem problems and fear of intimacy are not uncommon. Panic, irritation, and overreaction can become exhausting. All are issues that strain the closest connections. It’s important to deal with anxiety before accompanying behaviors cause relationship chaos and resentment.
How your anxiety counselor can help
Building trusting relationships can help reduce anxiety’s power over you. By developing a trusting relationship with your therapist, you may find you are better able to understand the impact of anxiety on your other relationships. From there, you may even feel empowered to build trust and generate positive change with loved ones and co-workers in new ways.
5. No one gets how big a deal your anxiety is
You may feel too embarrassed by your worries to comfortably share them with a therapist. But you may have found, too, that your loved ones don't truly grasp the overwhelming anxiety you're dealing with. You may even be at the point that you think you’re better off alone. Too many people lose time and relationships to anxiety and self-blame. Sometimes anxiety can even have a partner: depression. Double-teamed by both, you can feel miserable and further isolated. Reach out, even if you're worried about how it will go. Even if you feel like no one understands. If the people you care about aren’t able to support you, start with a counselor trained to hear you and help you find relief.
How your anxiety counselor can help
Out of bounds, anxiety is a big deal, but it can be restored to a healthy place in your life. Therapy is a first step to getting support. Your healing matters. Your mind, emotions, and body deserve it. It’s okay, for now, if your friends and family don’t get it. Reaching out for professional guidance means you’ll have a safe, productive place to find freedom and fulfillment. Talk to your loved ones later when you feel more confident and ready. It’s okay to take this time on your own to feel better and live well.
I am available to help you feel safe and accepted as we work on putting anxiety in its place. Please consider some extra support. For a free consultation, please contact us below. What do you have to lose.
To find out more about my services, click here Anxiety Therapy. Serving Boulder, Longmont, Denver.
For your other needs, you can count on April Lyons Psychotherapy Group, to help you heal and grow through EMDR therapy, somatic therapy, trauma therapy, and PTSD treatment – because we believe in your strength and potential for recovery.
