In some cases, anxiety can be brought on simply by thinking about a particular situation, affecting a person’s physical and emotional state of well-being.  Avoiding situations that cause anxiety can ultimately make your anxiety worse and create more anxiety moving forward. It’s like being on a rollercoaster; it has its ups and downs and can become exhausting, depressing and debilitating.

If chronic anxiety is not addressed, it can interfere with your life and have a huge impact on relationships, work, study, socialising, sleep, driving, and many other areas of life, preventing those who live with anxiety from concentrating on what needs to be done on a daily basis. In a nutshell, anxiety is a serious condition that can make it hard to cope with life.

It is important to understand that there are various forms of anxiety that may include, Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Phobia, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

There are a range of contributing factors associated with any form of anxiety and some of these contributing factors may include, but are not limited to, the environment we live in, stress, genetics, various forms of physical and mental illness, substance abuse, various types of trauma, pain, lifestyle, work, finances and grief.

It is first helpful to determine the trigger of your anxiety for a successful outcome with a management plan.  For some people, their anxiety may be associated with past trauma and therefore may need to explore the impact of the original trauma through psychotherapy with a qualified and experienced psychotherapist.  The therapists approach to determine the underlying trauma will depend on the training and experience the therapist has as the therapist may work with a variety of techniques to desensitise the memory of the trauma and this may take a long period of time to explore.

If the contributing factors of anxiety are so complex and distinctive, then so will be the recovery process.  What works for one may not be as successful for another, depending on your circumstances.

So how do you manage anxiety so that you can recover or live a relatively comfortable life?

Lasting recovery or management for anxiety should be treated as an entirety, managed through various forms of treatments and therapies including anxiety counselling. Can counselling help anxiety?  Counselling can assist in helping you to deal with the anxiety by challenging negative self-talk and

mistaken beliefs, changing negative behavioural habits and attitudes.  The counsellor may approach this through cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or another form of therapy.  A qualified anxiety counsellor will guide and support you through taking small steps to work toward achievable goals and increase your self-confidence and self-esteem.  Your treatment plan may also include learning good nutrition and exercise programs tailored to suit and relaxation and breathing techniques that will help you to cope better and reduce your anxiety level so that your anxiety becomes easier to manage.

Many of my clients who present with anxiety during a therapeutic session also present with low self-esteem, in fact anxiety and low self-esteem is a common theme in my practice.  What else is common is the way a client will describe how controlling anxiety is for them and the impact anxiety has on their lives.  Anxiety can have an enormous impact on their enjoyment in life, their ability to form and keep relationships and their ability to leave the home to go to work or attend appointments.

If you are finding anxiety difficult to cope with, instead of avoiding situations in life, it would be helpful if you could confront and work through your fears with the support of a qualified therapist, together with an effective treatment plan.

You can contact me here to make a booking if you would like some support in working through your anxiety.