Anxiety is highly treatable
and surprisingly common
Anxiety Treatment for Adults & Teens
“Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in
the United States every year (or 18.1% of the population). And it is estimated that 31.1% of the
U.S. adult population experiences some type of
anxiety disorder at some time in their lives.”
That’s a lot of people.
Sadly, however, although anxiety is highly treatable, only about 35% of those suffering receive treatment.
What is anxiety?
Everyone experiences occasional worries, feelings of panic, and mild physical symptoms of stress when dealing with difficult situations or people. However, people with diagnosed anxiety disorders experience greater discomfort and more frequent symptoms than these “run-of-the mill” everyday stress reactions and experience them to a degree that work and home life functioning becomes impaired. Left untreated, symptoms may prevent them entirely from engaging in social and family relationships, meeting job and school requirements, and participating in other daily activities.
Anxiety disorders include:
{
Agoraphobia
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Panic Disorder
Specific Phobias
Separation Anxiety
Social Anxiety
Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with depressive disorders or substance misuse, and some people are diagnosed with more than one type of anxiety disorder concurrently.
Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety
The experience of an anxiety disorder or panic attacks may look and feel different from person to person. Some symptoms of an anxiety disorder include:
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Negative thoughts including anticipating danger everywhere, frequent feelings of inadequacy or impending failure, or believing that something bad will happen if things aren’t done a certain way.
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Feelings of anxiety leading to irritability, shaking, feeling “on edge”.
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Rapidly beating or “racing” heart with chest tightness or pain
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Stomach pain including nausea, cramping or bowel problems.
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Difficulty breathing including a choking sensation, hyperventilation or asthma
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Low appetite or binge eating
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Difficulty falling or staying asleep
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Feeling detached from one’s body or “unreal”.
Causes of Anxiety
Anxiety disorders can be caused by the interaction of genetics and environmental triggers including stress from traumatic events, medical conditions, relationships, academic or professional performance expectations, and even unhealthy lifestyles. Some examples of common triggers for anxiety include:
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Stress from a personal relationship, job, or finances
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Childhood trauma or recent traumatic event
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Side effects of a prescribed medicine
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Accompanying symptoms of a related mental illness like depression
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Stress from an underlying medical condition like thyroid dysfunction, chronic illness or brain injury
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Overly-high expectations for achievement at school or work
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Lack of sleep, exercise, and healthy eating
Some triggers can be changed. For example, you may be able to get more sleep, treat a medical condition, or change careers. But other triggers are unavoidable. Evidenced-based treatment can help people with anxiety learn how to manage triggering situations without experiencing severe symptoms of anxiety.
Anxiety + neuroscience = the key to treatment
Sometimes, it seems that anxiety is all around us. Anxiety fills our thoughts: worry about our health, about meeting deadlines at work, about feeling not good enough or up to the task at hand (whatever the task might be). And anxiety fills our bodies: waking up in the middle of the night with tightness in the chest and heart pounding (seemingly for no reason) or being limited in our activities by fears about illness, or cleanliness or heights or spiders that are felt in the gut or as a tightness in the throat making it hard to speak.
These two very different ways of experiencing anxiety show up because there are two separate pathways in the brain that can give rise to anxiety. And each pathway needs to be understood and treated for maximum relief. Both thoughts (that arise in the higher brain area known as the cortex) and body-type reactions (that arise in the middle brain area known as the amygdala) are involved and therapy must address both to be effective.
In our work together, we will address your anxiety symptoms using both thinking-based Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and mind-body interventions like breathing, relaxation, mindfulness, EFT/Tapping, heart-rate variability (AKA Biofeedback), yoga, nutrition and more. We’ll explore what’s causing your anxiety on a deep level looking at the lessons you learned in childhood, your communication and relationship skills and explore your hopes and dreams for the future so we keep our focus on the fabulous life ahead that you’ll have when anxiety is no longer such a limiting factor.
Come, join me and start the journey toward wellness!
What do I need to do now?
Get in touch and we’ll see if we’re a good fit. Together, we'll create a plan with concrete strategies to help you feel better and create a more beautiful life (and it won’t take years!)