| THERAPY SERVICES |
Anxiety Therapy & Stress Management
Stressed out
You are up early and still tired, getting ready for your day. Sometimes your commute is into the city, sometimes it is to your home office. You are in back-to-back meetings, with text messages from family asking you for rides, to find their keys, and to coordinate everyone's lives. It's like you have your full-time job and you have to be an unpaid, full-time family project manager, too. You want to get to the gym, take a walk, or meet a friend for coffee but only rarely does it happen.
For some of us, the day-to-day stresses only add to the constant worry we already have - maybe it’s actually anxiety. Difficulty sleeping, mind racing, difficulty shutting it down, even when we know it is not helping. Sometimes, it even escalates into a panic attack.
Something's got to give.
Anxiety stresses
me out.
Let's look into the ways you cope with anxiety and stress - many of us make poor choices here, opting to have an extra glass of wine, eat to self-soothe, or do some late-night online shopping. None of these things is inherently a bad thing but sometimes they cause bigger problems such as spending more than you can really afford, poor sleep, or raising your cholesterol levels. I am not a specialist on eating disorders or substance use but I have had success helping clients evaluate their choices and make deliberate changes that really work and are healthier in the long-term.
We will find practical stress management techniques that work for you and investigate other ways to reduce your stress, anxiety and panic attacks and identify potential roadblocks to making these important changes.
It may also be useful to dig a little deeper to better understand our constant, debilitating worry. Stress is bad enough but anxiety can really make it hard to engage at home, at work, and in relationships. Taking steps to manage this condition can help you be present and enjoy the good things in life.
Let’s:
Collect information about the scope of your symptoms (racing thoughts, panic attacks, difficulty sleeping/insomnia?)
Identify any messages your symptoms may be telling you
Discuss your personal and professional relationships to see if unhealthy patterns may be part of the problem.
Create a plan for how to approach your therapeutic goals.
Talk about your beliefs to see how they might worsen your sense of overwhelm and find a way to let go of those that no longer serve you.
Re-write your own story: Be the author of your future self by updating your personal narrative to more accurately reflect your thoughts and beliefs.
Do you believe it?
People tend to form their view of the world when they are 5-7 years old.
Some of these long-held beliefs and negative personal narratives take some real work to change.
Changing unhealthy (and inaccurate) beliefs and expectations can really improve your peace of mind and take some of the pressure off your shoulders.
Let it go.
Finally, sometimes there are situations where clients simply face too many pressures and truly have limited options. While I hope these times are few and far between, you can learn to let go of expectations for things out of your control. You can stop beating yourself up about things you cannot change and measure your success in other ways.