What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is natural and normal and we all experience anxiety at some point or another. We often feel anxiety when we need to be alert to deal with a stressful situation. It is the body's response to the fight - flight - freeze response and it serves a purpose, however sometimes it can get overactive.
What can I do about Anxiety?
There are a range of tools that can assist in learning how to control anxiety. There are breath work techniques to help. Often when anxiety starts to increase, we go into a shallow breathing response, which in turn creates more of the anxiety that we are so wishing would stop.
Learning how to breathe in a more effective way, helps enormously.
A simple breath work technique to help, is to simply extend the length of the exhale, longer than the inhale breath. Slow down as you breathe in, and count how long you can breathe in for. Now as you breathe out, breathe out for a longer period of time. For example if you breathe in for a count of 4, exhale long count to 6 or 7. Notice the length of time it is comfortable to breathe in for, and over time you will be able to increase the length of the breath.
Learn to Stop and Pause
Just as we hit the pause button on our videos, we can learn to do that with our body. We need to learn to take time, to stop and reflect on what's going on. Anxiety is trying to tell you something. It may be that you are in danger and need to be careful. That after all, is it's purpose.
If you find anxiety is arising, stop for a little while and notice if you are having a feeling of emotional upset, or a reaction to something stressful. Sometimes after drinking too much caffeine, we can have an anxiety response, but we don't link it to the amount of caffeine we have had. We can also have a similar response to our blood sugars that are spiking.
What can I expect in a session?
As a holistic counsellor, in our sessions, I will assist you in learning how to manage your worrying and anxiety. It may feel as though you are the only one feeling this way, however, we all experience anxiety at some point in our lives, it is a normal emotional response to a situation.
In our sessions you will learn effective breath work techniques, and we will reflect on life style choices that may be contributing to anxiety. Sleep, diet, relationships, work, all contribute to anxiety. We'll work together to help you to master it, rather than it, mastering you.
Get Checked
There are certain health conditions that can give anxiety like symptoms. For example, if you have asthma and have trouble breathing, you may experience anxiety like symptoms. If any of the relaxation or other techniques don't seem to be helping, it's advisable to see your Dr to have it checked out.
Anxiety Management Course
There are a course of 10 modules if you would like to work through them. I will send you the modules out each week for you to work on. You can work through them in session, or complete them at your own pace and then discuss them in a session.
You will learn...
What triggers worrying and what keeps it going. Attention Training - learn how to strengthen your attention, so that your mind is not so easily distracted by worries. It will help you to stay present-focused, to keep your mind on the task at hand and learn to disengage from worrisome thoughts.
We will also cover problem solving strategies, how to discover helpful thinking about things that concern you.
To finish up, we will look at strategies to help you stay on top of worries in the future, and develop a self management plan.
