Anxiety Relief

At this point, you’re probably acutely aware…

… of your mind working overtime, your heart racing, and your chest tightening.

When you try to sleep, if you even make it that far, the impact of fear you have felt in your body all day leaves you restless and on edge. Peace and relief seem so far away.

Some might describe this sensation as being in a hamster wheel. The spinning and noise are unrelenting, with no end in sight. It keeps you from going places, doing things, and meeting people. It’s interfering with your relationships.

It may even grow into a full-blown panic attack. The scariest part is starting to feel like this is the “new normal,” and it’s here to stay.

All this worry can lead you to a dark place of despair and hopelessness.

You don’t like your circumstances, and you’ve tried hard to fix things, but…

It just seems to be getting worse, or maybe it’s the same, but it’s been not good for so long.

Essential oils, telling yourself to stop, even going the extra mile to practice some meditation… none of it seems to stop the hamster wheel from spinning.

You may have even resorted to drinking a glass of wine (or two or three) at night to try to take the edge off and be able to sleep. It may even seem like the more you are aware of the anxiety increasing and it needing to stop, the higher the anxiety starts to get.

Acknowledging that “normal” is no longer working…

The sleepless nights, persistent worry, despair, negative thinking… the never feeling good enough… you know that something must change. This, incidentally, is your first courageous step toward living a better life.

Acknowledging our “normal” isn’t working for ourselves is one thing, but to reach out and tell someone else can be uncomfortable and vulnerable.

I have had many people tell me that they needed help a long time before they actually called. They often reflect that they are so glad they finally reached out but wish they had done it sooner.

Now that you know you no longer want to be living this normal, it’s time to reach out for help. I will do my best to provide a comfortable environment for you starting with the first phone call.

Your brain is a powerful tool, so let’s put it to work for you.

Have you ever wondered what is going on in your brain when you feel anxious, worried, or panicked?

There are two important parts of your brain – the cortex and the amygdala – are the main culprits for producing anxiety. The cortex is responsible for the worry, obsession, and rumination… while the amygdala ignites anxiety’s exhausting physical sensations that come from our “flight or fight” response.

In our work together, I will show you how to take charge of these powerful brain functions and stop anxiety at the source. I’ll give you tips and exercises to put you in control of your anxious thoughts and reactions.

Controlling your anxiety: What you’ll learn and how it will help…

Permanent relief from the chronic sensations of anxiety and panic is possible. I’ve done the research, gathered the tools, and put them together in a way that is easy to explain and put into action.

Here are some of the practical tools you will learn:

Know your brain’s role in creating anxiety.

In our work together, I will teach you how to recognize when you’re thinking, the cortex part of your brain is creating anxiety or when your amygdala is sounding the alarm on its own.

When we know how our brain is creating anxiety, we can then influence the process.

Recognize and modify thoughts that illicit anxiety.

The cortex is the part of our brain that involves thinking. You will learn how to use logic, experience, and argument to re-wire the circuitry in the cortex. Most of us have common thinking issues. This means we have ways of thinking that can actually ignite anxiety, worry, and fear. Let me give you an example to explain…

Let’s say you need to send an email to your boss requesting time off. As you open an email to begin typing, you are bombarded with thoughts… “She will get upset if I ask off,” “I messed up just last week on that assignment,” “Don’t be a bother,” “I think I got a look in that meeting.”

Your heart rate starts to pick up, the chest tightens, and the palms even begin to feel sweaty as your anxiety begins to spin. Overwhelmed by the flood of feelings and thought, you close the e-mail and decide maybe you will send it tomorrow.

In our work together, I will teach you how to identify how these thoughts turn on anxiety and teach you how to challenge and change the channel on the ones that are not helpful. You will be able to say things to yourself like, “I have a right to ask for time off, I am a hard worker,” “I don’t actually know how she will respond,” “The look my boss gave in that meeting could have been for a million different reasons, and it was actually unlikely it has anything to do with me.”

Imagine how different your experience would be with the ability to challenge and change the channel on those anxiety-igniting thoughts.

Identify anxiety and trauma triggers.

Have you ever been going about your day and then BOOM out of nowhere, your chest tightens, the heart rate increases, butterflies start swirling in your stomach, and you have no idea why this happened?

In our work together, you will become an expert on your own anxiety and trauma triggers. When we develop the ability to identify triggers for our anxiety and trauma reactions, it increases our own ability to tolerate these difficult experiences.

Imagine being in the grocery and feeling a sudden anxiety attack come on; you pause and become aware of your surroundings, realizing a song is on in the store that just happened also to be playing when that bad event happened a few years ago. Taking a deep breath bringing yourself into the present moment, you remind your body and brain that you are no longer in danger.

By turning on your relaxation response, you can finish grocery shopping (a little more shook up than usual), but you got what you needed, and your day wasn’t derailed.

Understand the difference between amygdala-based anxiety and cortex-based anxiety.

Knowing the different types of anxiety keeps us from looking in the refrigerator to determine why the car isn’t working. Targeting the correct parts of your brain that is producing the anxiety is important.

Have you ever noticed that when you are in a panic attack or having a trauma reaction, the ability to think, use reason and logic seem far away? That’s because when we have a “flight or fight” response, the thinking part of our brain turns off (as it should), so we can be ready to fight or run.

However, when our thinking turns off because of over-activation, it can be really frustrating and overwhelming. Telling ourselves to calm down when in panic or a trauma response doesn’t work because our thinking part of the brain is already turned off.

By knowing which type of anxiety you are facing, you will know how to cut it off at the source. In our work together, you will have tools to calm the amygdala and tools to challenge and change unhelpful thinking.

Calm and train the amygdala.

The role of the amygdala is to attach emotional significance to situations, objects, or experiences. It’s like adding a post-it note to a stored memory. Understanding how the amygdala works helps reduce doom-and-gloom thinking and reframes our experiences.

Since we know our amygdala learns based on our everyday experiences, you can retrain the amygdala to re-wire your connections in your brain.

We will explore many tools together, and some you will find more helpful than others (and that’s ok).

Some tools that can calm down the amygdala are diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, regular aerobic exercise, yoga, and an adequate sleep routine.

Over time using these tools will decrease the overall activation of the amygdala resulting in lower anxiety. You will also have the ability to invoke a relaxation response in your body when you need it.

To re-wire the circuity in the amygdala, producing lasting change, exposure is used to “teach” the amygdala’s new responses. Let me use the example of fear of driving to bring this point home…

Let’s say you have a fear of driving. By exposing yourself first to sitting in the car, then turning the car on, then driving to the end of the driveway, then to the end of the street, and so on, you can retrain the amygdala to be calm when driving. And gone are the days of the “flight or fight” response when you think about driving down the highway.

Avoidance increases amygdala activation. With the help of a supporting professional, you can re-wire the circuity in your brain by addressing it directly.

Retrain the cortex to resist anxiety rather than ignite it.

Has your loved one ever been late to something or not answered your phone call when expected… and then all of a sudden, you find yourself imagining them in a car wreck somewhere or some other scary image of what has happened to them surfaces. When this happens, our cortex using imagery has ignited anxiety.

Through our work together, you will be able to change the channel on these types of unhelpful images and thoughts using positive imagery, cognitive restructuring, developing coping thoughts, and even using distraction to keep your mind engaged in living your life rather than consumed with anxiety.

Want to deal with this for good?

You don’t have to spend your days drowned in anxiety and worry. There are solutions. My clients have overcome crippling anxiety… the type of anxiety that was previously preventing them from loving their lives.

Imagine enjoying your friend’s get-together that you usually avoid because it just “feels like too much”…

Imagine waking up in the morning feeling refreshed because your brain is no longer on overdrive…

Imagine feeling calm when you think about that bad thing that happened because you have learned to control your “fight or flight” response…

It’s time to say “goodbye” to feeling those exhausting physical sensations, sidestepping the things that you want to do, and looking for ways to ease the anxiety with no success.

Take the first step right now. Call me and let’s set up your free 20-minute consultation: (615) 219-9932.