Anxiety Treatment
Are Anxious Thoughts Keeping You Up At Night?
Do you often feel irritable, impatient, and jittery? Is constant worry about what will happen next preventing you from enjoying life? Have you ever wished you could stop doubting yourself and find a way to feel calmer and more at ease?
When you suffer from anxiety, it can feel terrible and overwhelming. Well-meaning friends and family tell you not to worry but you can't turn off the thoughts that drain you of energy and wear you down. Perhaps you’re constantly comparing yourself to others and plagued with self-doubt. Despite your hard work, you might feel like a failure and undeserving of the successes you have earned. You may not fully realize how much your limiting beliefs perpetuate these problems and keep you in a constant state of discomfort.
The symptoms of anxiety could be affecting you physically. Perhaps your head is consumed by self-disparaging, negative chatter—especially at night—that could be interfering with your sleep. Moreover, you may rarely feel hungry, or conversely, you be using food to numb your feelings. You might even experience alarming panic-like symptoms from time to time—heart racing, muscle tension, headache, and an upset stomach.
Persistent feelings of worry and fear may be impacting your behaviour at home, work, or even with your friends. Perhaps you have a low tolerance for frustration and are prone to impatience, irritability, and angry outburst. You may find yourself withdrawing from others and plagued by a constant sense of shame and embarrassment. After social interactions, you may worry that you’ve said something to offend someone or make someone dislike you. Or maybe you don’t perceive yourself as worthy of belonging and acceptance, so you deliberately avoid social interaction altogether.
Fortunately, there are treatments for anxiety that work to help you feel better.
Anxiety Is A Normal Human Response, But Too Much Anxiety Can Negatively Affect Your Life
We all experience some degree of anxiety from time to time. Anxiety is a part of the human experience and evidence that our brain is designed to alert us to signs of danger. While a low level of stress can motivate us towards great achievements, anxiety gets in the way of our ability to realize our full potential. Left unchecked, anxiety can negatively affect all aspects of our lives, including our work, physical health, and close relationships.
When we suffer from anxiety, our brains misfire at inappropriate times, prompting a “fight, flight, or freeze” response to kick in. What makes overcoming anxiety challenging for us is that this response is involuntary—telling ourselves not to go into fight, flight, or freeze is as unrealistic as telling a cut not to bleed.
While there are often genetic and neurological components to anxiety, there can also be family, work-related, or relational causes underlying it. Smart, creative people worry more because they have the ability to imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong. Societal expectations around perfection and pressure to succeed can contribute to anxious feelings, as can behaviours we learn in childhood. The ways we were taught to cope with traumatic events as children can later become unhelpful responses to life’s stressors when we’re adults.
Overcoming anxiety can be challenging for many reasons. Those of us who have had anxiety since childhood may have become so used to living with fearful thoughts and worrying about the future that we doubt the distress we’re experiencing can ever be alleviated or managed differently. Our thoughts have managed to trick us to believe what they tell us, but thoughts are not facts. This is problematic for us because what we feel is often what we believe, thereby warping our perception of reality.
While the stigma around mental health is slowly abating, it still exists—especially in certain cultures. Many of us have internalized this stigma and then shame ourselves about not being able to manage without help.
The good news is that anxiety disorders are one the most common mood disorders and highly responsive to therapy. Imagine making it through each day with less worry, more feelings of contentment about your life accomplishments, and deeper and more meaningful relationships with others.
With Anxiety Treatment, You Can Regain A Sense Of Peace
By offering a flexible approach to treatment, the psychologists at Aligned Minds will guide you through the journey of understanding your anxiety and the best ways to manage it. Therapy offers a safe space to explore fears, worries, doubts, and the impact that distressing emotions can have on your day-to-day functioning at work and home.
Before our initial session, you will fill out an intake form electronically. Our first session or two will then be focused on gaining an understanding of who you are, your family history, and your current relationships. We’ll discuss the symptoms of anxiety you’re experiencing so we can establish a baseline understanding of your struggles and track future progress. Your hopes and goals for anxiety counselling will also be discussed.
Unresolved trauma from the past can show up in the present as anxiety, so your counsellor will be mindful to maintain a trauma-informed lens. In ongoing sessions, we will explore the impact your upbringing may be having on you now. We will also examine your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours and the interconnections between them. You will get the chance to nurture your own self-acceptance, self-compassion and to prioritize self-care.
Anxiety often interferes with the creation or maintenance of healthy relationships. The therapeutic conversations you have with your counsellor will endeavour to allow you to develop the self-awareness to support the development of a healthier connection with yourself and others. You will receive guidance around the difference between reactivity and responsiveness and we will explore ways to reduce reactivity and enhance responsiveness. While you can’t necessarily change all of your life situations, you can change how you respond to these challenges.
You might be interested in gaining an understanding of the origins of your anxiety or be more interested in what to do about it now. Or perhaps you would find it useful to explore both aspects. We can start wherever you feel comfortable, navigating the path forward alongside you. It is for this reason that we use an eclectic approach tailored to your personality, background, and goals.
We draw from various modalities to treat anxiety, including Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and mindfulness. Anxiety therapy teaches you o recognize, question and rewrite the thoughts that limit your success, happiness and well-being. It is possible to learn how to quiet your mind, live in the present moment and live a peaceful life.
But you may still be wondering whether anxiety treatment is right for you…
What if I’m not ready to face my fears?
Confronting anxiety takes a lot of courage. It can be scary facing our feelings, unmet needs, and deepest desires. When we share these private thoughts with others, we are opening ourselves up to possible rejection, dismissal, shame, and disappointment. Anxiety can entice us to believe that we need to avoid self-examination to stay safe, Nonetheless, it is only by expressing our feelings, needs, and desires that we can break out of the prison anxiety has constructed for us.
I was raised to believe that going to a therapist is a sign of weakness.
You may have been told growing up that therapy is for “other people, not for us”, or that, “In our family, we’re stronger than that.” While it may be difficult to ignore the opinions that were ingrained long ago, the truth is that overcoming anxiety all by yourself isn’t realistic. It’s OK to ask for help when you need it. True strength is found in being honest about what you’re going through and willing to share your burdens with someone else.
Why bother getting help? My anxiety disorder will never get better.
You're probably tired of trying to figure this out on your own and confused about how to manage anxiety and stress. With the proper treatment, your symptoms of anxiety can be managed, helping you live a fuller, more engaged life. And if you have been struggling with panic attacks or social anxiety, your treatment can be tailored to address those problems as well. If fear and worry is a problem, you may benefit from talking to someone who is highly skilled at working with your special concerns.
Open Your Heart To Live Your Fullest Potential
Building your sense of self and improving your confidence go hand in hand with healing and personal growth. Seeking treatment for anxiety can guide you to be more mindful and present in the moment. For a free, 15-minute consultation, please feel free to contact us.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Warmly, Aligned Minds
"To be aware of a single shortcoming
in oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in someone else."
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama