Help for Anxiety

Help for Anxiety

Many people experience some form of anxiety during their life whether overwhelming stress, excessive worry, or chronic self-doubt. Anxiety is our body’s way of protecting us and can be helpful in the right context. But for some people, their bodies are stuck in an anxious state and have difficulty knowing they are not in immediate danger. These people have a heightened “fight, flight, or freeze response”.

There are many reasons the fight, flight, or freeze response can happen, usually a combination of genes, life history, and stress. Here are some reasons people may struggle with anxiety:

 

Biology/Heredity

Maybe your grandmother excessively worried or your father struggled with PTSD. Through genetics and epigenics, anxiety can be passed down from your ancestors. Hormone or chemical imbalances in the brain can cause a heightened stress response. Which can also be exacerbated by pregnancy. There are several medical conditions that can increase anxiety, such as thyroid issues, hypertension, diabetes, COPD or asthma, PMS, or vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Please consult your health care provider to rule out any underlying biological issues.

 

Childhood Circumstances

Parents who are overprotective or overcritical can unknowingly instill a sense of anxiety about ourselves and the world around us. And childhood emotional and physical abuse and neglect have a lasting effect. The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) questionnaire (explained further on the complex trauma page) identifies several areas in childhood experiences that can increase the likelihood of anxiety (and other issues) as we age.

 

Life Stressors

Life stressors can accumulate over time when we do not experience breaks from the stress. It’s important that we let our bodies and minds recuperate after stressful events. This is why I focus part of therapy on increasing self-care and setting boundaries. Some of the top life stressors are death of loved ones, divorce, illness, marriage, job changes, and pregnancy. If some of these life events happen together in succession it can trigger our bodies into a state of anxiety.

 

Psychological Factors

As we go through life, we gather beliefs. These can come from parents, family members, peers, and life experiences. These beliefs shape how we see and respond to ourselves and the world around us. Our beliefs then affect people and places we may avoid, our self-talk, which emotions we pay attention to or avoid, our communication style, and boundary setting.

 

Anxiety can come in many forms – worry, nervousness, avoidance, panic, or flashbacks – but the underlying factor is some kind of fear. I work with each client to identify the fear, process any trauma that may have occurred, and find ways to decrease the anxious response and increase a state of calm. This can be done through increasing coping skills, distress tolerance skills, cognitive restructuring, and mindful practice, but also through learning relaxation techniques that incorporate the physical body. Relaxation techniques can include progressive muscle relaxation, mindful movements and stretching, breathing techniques, and visualization. I also offer Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. EMDR is an effective therapy for decreasing anxiety triggers and reprocessing traumatic memories.

 

If you are in the Traverse City area and feel you have been struggling with anxiety or are interested in learning more about any of these techniques, please feel free to call me at 231-714-0292. I'd love to hear from you!