Anxiety is a normal emotion that can cause physical symptoms and feelings of nervousness, apprehension, dread, worry and fear. Everybody gets anxious at times and some anxiety actually helps us to function well, such as a work presentation or an exam.
Anxiety is a useful state for humans. Anxiety is the body’s way of responding to being in danger. Sometimes we perceive a threat (such as intrusive thoughts, social situations) our systems see danger and our body fires up, adrenaline and cortisol are released into our bloodstream to enable us to run away or fight, or freeze. It is the body’s alarm and survival mechanism. Once anxious, we can constantly be on the lookout for danger, becoming hypervigilant. Hypervigilance is a heightened state of awareness it’s your brain’s way of protecting you by scanning the environment for signs of danger and being extremely aware of your surroundings.
Anxiety can become a problem when it happens too often, it goes on for a long time, it stops us from doing things that we want to do.
You may experience some of the following symptoms:
Persistent nervousness
Problems with sleeping
Needing frequent reassurance
Feeling emotional and tearful
Unfounded fears about oneself or family
Trembling
Racing thoughts
Unable to concentrate
Feel detached from the world around you
Breathing may become shallow and fast
Muscle tension
Sweating
Light-headedness and dizziness
Palpitations
Stomach discomfort
The severity of these symptoms can vary, at their most extreme; they can build to a panic attack. Panic attacks are a combination of the above symptoms that are so strong, you can feel as though you are having a heart attack or even that you are dying.
When you experience these symptoms, we often adopt avoidance behaviours to stop the anxiety. Avoidance is a typical behaviour that is attempting to control what’s going on, for example, avoiding certain places, people, or activities. Anxiety tends to thrive on avoidance. It has a tendency to over exaggerate the threat and underestimate our capacity to cope with it.
If you have experienced intense anxiety for a prolonged period of time with physical as well as psychological symptoms then this can be very overwhelming and you may find talking to someone helpful in order to find ways of coping and decrease your anxiety.
I offer a flexible, collaborative, compassionate approach, working both top down and bottom up:
Top down (focusing on the prefrontal cortex associated with thinking and speaking) including psychoeducation on the nervous system, making sense of your experiences and perspectives, recognising rumination, catastrophizing and challenging distorted cognitions.
Alongside bottom up (focussing on the sub-cortex part of the brain responsible for memories, trauma, survival responses) with the use of somatic body and breath work, Brainspotting (a body and brain-based therapy), these tools help manage anxiety and process past experiences that may have resulted in your heightened responses.
I will also ask about your general health and lifestyle to compliment the psychological aspect.
Tania Turner Integrative Counsellor MBACP 