Anxiety Treatment

On edge? exhausted? Can’t catch a break from your brain?

Finding calm is possible.

If you struggle with anxiety, every day can feel like a battle. A battle that robs you of a sense of calm, and leaves you feeling without energy. You might feel worried about something, most of the time. Even if one part of you can recognize “this probably isn’t worth worrying about”, your anxiety decides to hold onto it anyways. Enjoying things is really hard these days because your anxiety just wont let up.

The feeling of anxiety is something we all experience at different points in time. It’s a normal and natural response to uncertainty in our lives. Our nervous system kicks into high gear as a way of preparing us for potential danger. But for some people, their nervous system is chronically elevated, even in the absence of anything truly threatening. When anxiety becomes chronic, it interferes with your ability to optimally function in daily life. Relationships, job performance, and health can all begin to seriously suffer.

Common symptoms of Anxiety

Panic

While anxiety can persist for long periods of time, and may have a more gradual onset, panic tends to come on quickly and intensely. There’s a good reason it’s often referred to as a “panic attack”. The feeling seemingly comes out of nowhere and it might feel as if you are having a heart attack or it might even seem like you’re dying. Its important to know that even if it feels like it, you cant actually die from a panic attack.

Panic Attack Symptoms

Types of Anxiety and Panic Disorders

Generalized Anxiety Disorder:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by a persistent and excessive sense of worry about a wide range of things. Those with GAD feel controlled by their worry more days than not. They may find themselves experiencing anxiety over work stress, money or financial concerns, family, health or other areas of their life. The anxiety often seems inexplicable or out of proportion to actual events. Those with GAD often think of worse case scenarios, and have trouble calming themselves down or finding ways to relax.

Social Phobia:

Those who struggle with Social Phobia or Social Anxiety disorder experience an intense feeling of self-consciousness or fear of being judged or humiliated in every-day social interactions. To learn more about social anxiety, click here.

Panic Disorder:

To qualify for a diagnosis of Panic disorder an individual must experience recurrent and seemingly out-of-the blue panic attacks. In addition, those with panic disorder develop a fear of experiencing future panic attacks. Worrying about what might trigger the next panic attack and/or changing your daily routine in order to avoid or prevent attacks from happening is a tell-tale sign of panic disorder.

Agoraphobia:

Agoraphobia is having a fear of and avoiding places or situations in which you are afraid you might have a panic attack or cannot escape. For some people the fear may be connected to specific places such as public transportation, large crowds, or small spaces. For other people it may be more general and the thought of leaving their home in any capacity triggers fear and anxiety.

Specific Phobias:

As the name suggests, a specific phobia is diagnosed when an individual has an intense fear of a specific object, situation, or stimuli and goes through great lengths to avoid the feared object. Examples of phobias are a fear of needles, a fear of flying, a fear of throwing up, or fear of heights.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:

OCD is characterized by two main features. 1) the person experiences a persistent pattern of irrational fears or obsessive thoughts, and 2) the person engages in repetitive/compulsive behaviors in response to the anxiety provoking thoughts. The compulsive behavior eases the tension and anxiety of the fearful thoughts, but often leaves the individual feeling at the mercy of their compulsive behavior.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

PTSD can occur after a person experiences a terrifying or traumatic incidence. Its normal to experience increased anxiety and trouble coping after a difficult life experience, but if your mental health continues to deteriorate, or the symptoms persist for months to years after the event, it could be indicative of PTSD. Common symptoms of PTSD are recurrent and disruptive flashbacks of the trauma, nightmares, feeling on guard for potential danger all the time, feeling hopeless, experiencing chronic guilt and shame. Learn more about trauma here.

How to deal with anxiety and panic

Anxiety can be impacted by physiological, psychological, and environmental factors. With any mental illness, its important to rule out entirely organic causes (such as hyperthyrodism) first. Identifying what environmental or life style factors might be contributing to your anxiety is another important step in managing it. Over-consumption of caffeine, lack of sleep, and a diet high in overly processed foods may be factors that can make your anxiety worse.

What types of therapy help anxiety?

Mindfulness based therapies:

Part of dealing with anxiety is learning skills to better manage uncomfortable thoughts and feelings when you experience them. When our anxiety is not managed well with healthy coping skills, we may be turning to unhealthy coping skills such as using food or substances to distract ourselves, or avoiding difficult situations that trigger the feelings.

Therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment therapy and Dialectical Behavioral therapy teach mindfulness skills to clients to help them manage their thoughts, emotions, urges, and behaviors more effectively.

What is mindfulness? mindfulness is easier to experience than it is to explain, but essentially when we are practicing mindfulness we are able to observe both our internal experiences (thoughts, feelings and sensations) as well as our external environment from a compassionate and non-judgmental view-point. Doing so allows people to stop anxious thought processes from progressing, have the flexibility to engage in healthier coping skills, and behave less impulsively when uncomfortable feelings show up.

EMDR therapy:

Often times the anxiety we develop was triggered by experiences from our past. Maybe you were bullied as a kid, and since then find yourself feeling really anxious around groups of people. Maybe you did poorly in school when you were younger, and now experience significant performance or test anxiety. Or it could be that you were in a car accident not too long ago, and while there were minimal physical injuries you have since then not been able to shake the feeling that something awful is coming. When this is the case, processing these memories may be a helpful step in resolving your anxiety. EMDR therapy helps your brain to reprocess these traumatic experiences in a new and more adaptive way. You can think of it this way. Imagine your brain is like a broken record player. Its stuck and replaying parts of your past experiences. EMDR helps your brain get unstuck, and play the record through.

Will therapy cure my anxiety?

As I mentioned earlier, the feeling of anxiety happens to everyone, but it doesnt have to control your life. Therapy tackles anxiety from several different angles. You can learn skills to help you stop yourself from spiraling into a panic attack, come to a better understanding of what thought patterns and triggers impact your experience of anxiety, and work through past traumas that have left you with a heightened experience of anxiety. With this multi-faceted approach, significant improvements in your functioning can be made.

I already take medication for my anxiety, why do I need therapy?

Research shows that management of a mental health disorder is most succcesful with a combination of medication and therapy. If you feel perfeclty happy about the success you’ve had with medication, then you may not need therapy. However if you find that you’re still struggling at times with medication alone, or want to have a better understanding of how to manage your anxiety without solely relying on medication, therapy is a great choice. Medication is one tool in your toolbox. Therapy can help you develope a whole aresenal of tools so you’re always prepared.

Start Anxiety Counseling in Cleveland OH

In my cleveland heights counseling office, I work with high functioning adults who are struggling to gain control of their anxiety. If you’re ready to win the war with your anxiety, connect with me today and take the first step towards creating more confidence and calm.

Other Counseling services Offered in Cleveland Heights

if you’re struggling with more than just anxiety, here are some other concerns I specialize in working with in my cleveland heights therapy practice.

Counseling for:

Social Anxiety

PTSD/trauma

Depression

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Stage of life concerns for young adults