Anxiety

Anxiety can begin at any point in the lifespan.

Anxiety is a stress response that manifests in mental, emotional, and physical ways.

Feeling apprehensive about stressful events in one’s life sometimes elicits anxious feelings. For instance, a big exam or an important presentation at work can create anxiety, especially if a lot is at stake. Anxiety, in such cases, is a natural response to a fear of not performing well.

In cases of everyday anxiety, an individual can experience an increase in pulse, breathing rate, blood pressure, and other chemical responses triggered by stress. However, these feelings usually pass; in most cases, anxiety leads to better performance. Think of butterflies in the stomach before an athletic competition.

However, when anxiety persists for long periods, it can negatively impact a person’s well-being.

Prolonged anxiety can disrupt your mental, emotional, and physical functioning.

Mental anxiety involves obsessional fears, worries, and ruminations that tend to be excessive, irrational, or even imaginary.

Emotional anxiety shows up partly as a sense of dread or doom as if something terrible is about to happen. It also manifests as edginess, restlessness, irritability, and difficulty concentrating.

Physical anxiety presents in various forms, including shallow rapid chest breathing, chest tightness, heart palpitations, lightheadedness, dizziness, sweating, trembling, stomach discomfort, nausea, muscle aches, insomnia, fatigue, and weakness.

Anxiety involves the chronic secretion of the stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol, designed by human evolution to help us survive brief life-threatening emergencies. Adrenaline is responsible for the mental and emotional aspects of anxiety, while cortisol impairs the function of our immune, reproductive, and digestive systems.

Prolonged anxiety not properly treated wears people down. They lose appetite and weight, experience problems with stomachache, constipation, or diarrhea, catch more frequent colds and cases of flu, experience acne or skin rashes, develop sexual issues, and have a higher risk of heart attacks. It can also morph into panic attacks, leading to unnecessary visits to the ER for fear of having a heart attack.

Anxiety is not a life sentence.

People experiencing anxiety can improve significantly without years of deep psychotherapy.

My clients typically experience a diminution of anxious symptoms in 2-3 sessions from learning relaxation techniques involving deep breathing, progressive muscle relation, self-massage, positive imagery, and conscious self-control of run-away thoughts.

If anxiety impacts you beyond your control, I can help.

Contact me today, and let’s work to help you overcome the anxiety that impacts you mentally, emotionally, and physically.