What is Anxiety?

Although often unpleasant, it is natural to feel some anxiety from time to time. Anxiety is a feeling of discomfort or worry, varying in severity, that is ultimately our body’s natural response to stress. These anxious feelings usually pass quite quickly, however, if the feeling is overwhelming or persistent, it can feel challenging to function fully in day-to-day life. At its worst, you may even experience panic, where you feel fearful, overwhelmed and out-of-control.

What’s the Impact of Anxiety?

It is not unusual to experience one or more of the following physical sensations if you’re struggling with anxiety: 

• Palpitations
• Sweating
• Tension
• Inability to swallow
• Nervous stomach
• Jelly legs
• Headaches
• Hyperventilation
• Shaking
• Frequent need to urinate 
• Dry mouth
• Chest pains
• Light headedness
• Feeling nauseated
• Fast breathing

You may also notice some changes in your emotions and thinking, such as:

• Obsessive thinking
• Inability to relax
• Thinking you are going ‘mad’ or losing control, 
• Negative thinking,
• Catastrophising
• Perfectionism
• Worrying about what you think will happen in future situations or about what people will think
• Feeling you might die, e.g. you may think you are about to have a heart attack, vomit, faint or become ill
• Hypervigilance (feeling on edge and very alert to everything around you)
• Feeling things are accelerating or decelerating
• A feeling of wanting to avoid things or run away

Anxiety adversely can influence out thoughts, feelings and behaviour daily. Avoiding the people, places or situations that make you feel anxious may provide some immediate relief, however, this may not ideal as a longer term-solution.

How Therapy Can Help

Whether there are specific circumstances causing you difficulty, or whether the cause is unclear, psychotherapy or counselling can be a very helpful way of managing and alleviating these feelings.

Working with you at a pace that feels right for you, therapy can help you to better understand your anxiety, specifically, it can help you to better understand your emotional and physical anxiety responses. Therapy can also help you to identify and implement strategies to overcome anxiety and find relief.

Where anxiety relates to a situation that cannot be changed, for example, a bereavement, the therapy can help you to work on your outlook, assisting you to work on accepting things that can’t be changed.

If you’d like to find out more about therapy for anxiety for you or someone you know, or you’d like to book an appointment, please call us on 0203 488 5396.