Over the years, anxiety and depression have become less stigmatized and accepted as more and more people are realizing that their experiences are not singular, especially due to people openly and vastly being able to share their experiences via social media. Believe it or not, anxiety plays an important role in our lives. “How?” you say. Anxiety is a response to a threat and the emotions that it elicits help us to survive (think flight-or-flight). There is also such a thing as having a healthy amount of anxiety, such as that nervous excitement before you are about to share some big news to the people that you care about.

However, anxiety can be a giant pain in the ass is when it becomes overwhelming, disruptive, paralyzing, and consuming in your day to day. When anxiety perpetuates a chronic state of stress, you start to feel the toll physically, emotionally, and mentally. Even when you know that your anxious thoughts are illogical, your body may still react as if you are in danger, making it near impossible to relax. You think, life would be so much easier if you did not have anxiety.

As someone who is more anxiously-oriented, I get it. I really do.

What Can Anxiety Look Like?

Physical Symptoms

• • Racing Heartrate, tingly sensation, rapid breathing, nausea, sleep disturbance, fatigue, trembling, stomach discomfort

Feeling like something bad is going to happen and being hypervigilant to be prepared

Panic attacks

Using substances (alcohol, marijuana, etc) to help you calm down

How Can Therapy Help?

Anxiety manifests differently from person to person, but they stem from a common theme of feeling unsafe in the present or the future. In therapy, we will explore and identify where your anxiety is stemming from as well as understand your triggers. You will also learn to identify what your anxiety is trying to tell you and respond to your needs in a way that is soothing and relieving of your symptoms. To learn more about my therapeutic approach, click here.