How common is anxiety, and can it be treated?
Anxiety is a dance between your body and your psyche. When it takes over, it can feel like your own mind and body have turned against you. The encouraging part is that anxiety is one of the most treatable conditions there is, and you do not have to keep living at its mercy.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition in the country. They affect about 40 million American adults, roughly 18 percent of us, in any given year. They also respond well to treatment, and yet only about a third of people who struggle with anxiety ever get help for it.
We also understand anxiety better than almost any other mental health issue. Over the last couple of decades, brain imaging has let researchers actually watch anxiety happen in the brain, and that has made treatment far more specific, and far more effective, than it used to be.
Some anxiety is simply a normal part of being alive. So how do you know when yours has crossed into something worth treating?
You can start by asking yourself the following questions:
- Is my anxiety irrational or out of proportion to reality?
- Does my anxiety make it difficult or impossible for me to do what I want to do?
- Is my anxiety so intense that I feel overwhelmed or out of control?
If you answer ‘yes’ to one or more of the questions, then you are suffering more than you need to.
You can learn to minimize or eliminate anxiety problems and regain control of your life.
Common symptoms of anxiety are:
Excessive Worry and Rumination
Catastrophizing
Agitation/Restlessness
Rapid Heart Rate
Muscular Tension and headaches
Difficulty Concentrating
Irritability
Trouble falling or staying asleep
Fatigue
Avoiding situations that provoke anxious feelings
Different types of anxiety
Generalized Anxiety (frequent or constant feeling of impending doom)
Phobias
Social Anxiety
Fear of failure/rejection
Driving anxiety
And many, many more
Questions
How can you help me with my anxiety?
Because anxiety is so prevalent in our world today (and amongst my clients), I have devoted a significant amount of time to the study of anxiety by becoming a “Certified Clinical Anxiety Treatment Professional”. This certification ensures that I am best informed on the latest science behind treating anxiety disorders and can offer my clients the most recent techniques proven to help.
You and I will first go on an investigative mission to discover the roots of your anxiety. We will then work together to devise a treatment plan that will offer you the opportunity to make the necessary changes to treat your anxiety with the latest tools and techniques proven to work in the scientific literature.
Should I take medication for my anxiety?
This is a highly personal decision and one that should not be taken lightly. While anti-anxiety medications do offer relief from the physiological feeling of anxiety, the side effects from these medications can be extremely problematic. You and I will discuss this option and if deemed appropriate, a referral for a psychiatric evaluation will be provided.
How long does it take to feel better with anxiety therapy?
It depends on the person and the root of the anxiety, but relief often comes faster than people expect. Some clients feel a real shift in just a few sessions.
One woman came to me after a frightening medical emergency with a loved one. She had spent a night listening to monitors beep, certain she was about to lose someone close to her. After that, ordinary sounds set off full panic attacks. She could not sleep. She could barely function. We used Accelerated Resolution Therapy, and her symptoms cleared in just a couple of sessions. Not every case moves that quickly, and yours may look different. Trauma driven anxiety often responds fast to ART, which is built to help the brain reprocess a distressing memory so it stops hijacking your body.
My style is solution focused and action oriented. I give homework. You and I will usually end a session with something specific to practice, because the change that lasts happens between our appointments, out in your real life. We start by finding the roots of your anxiety. Then we build a plan around tools that hold up in the research. When intrusive thoughts or rituals are part of the picture, I bring in the same approach I use for OCD treatment. When the worry is tangled up with caregiving and the quiet exhaustion of giving too much, we treat that too.
What kinds of anxiety do you treat, and how?
The anxiety I see most is OCD, generalized anxiety, and health anxiety. Earning my CCATP certification changed how I explain it to clients. Anxiety shows up in the body and the mind at the same time, and unless you work on both, it keeps the upper hand. So we practice tools for the body, like breathing exercises that pull you out of fight or flight, alongside mindfulness that trains the mind to stop chasing every worried thought.
Early on I usually build a trauma timeline with you, a simple map of the hard things you have lived through, because anxiety is often tied to experiences we have never fully talked about. From there we pick the tools that fit. You will know we are getting close to done when the anxiety is under control, stress feels manageable again, and you are using the tools on your own without me reminding you. When intrusive thoughts and rituals are driving the worry, we treat that with the same approach I use for OCD. If medication ever makes sense, I will refer you to a trusted local provider for that evaluation.
Healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about remembering what’s whole.
If you are ready to learn to face the issues in your life, to gain new coping skills and to feel more peaceful inside, please contact me today to set up a complimentary phone consultation to discuss treatment options.
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