Experiencing Anxiety

During the course of therapy, you’ll learn skills to manage your anxiety. You will learn to recognize your triggers and identify your internal warning signs that the anxiety cycle has started.

You will learn to disengage from negative thoughts and treat them as information, rather than absolute truths, so they have less influence over your behaviour.

You will also learn acceptance skills that allow you to feel the physical symptoms of anxiety as they occur in your body without trying to change them or run from them.

The mind wanders by nature. It revisits the past, it explores, and plans for the future. When we can’t make sense of what’s going on, the mind represses, distracts or fixates. With anxiety therapy, you will learn to step outside these thinking patterns.

You can reach beyond the regrets of the past and the worries of the future and focus on the present moment where you can take meaningful action.

As you learn these skills, you’ll watch your relationship with anxiety begin to change. Those anxious feelings will become less intense and less frequent, allowing you to lead a more fulfilling, balanced and peaceful life.

• How to identify your triggers and learn how to calm yourself and disengage from negative thoughts and behaviours.
• Apply strategies for minimizing stress and anxiety.
• Accept reality as it is, feel the physical symptoms of anxiety, and recognize their impermanence.
• Prevent stress from escalating.
• Focus on the present moment and take decisive action.

Anxiety manifests itself in a variety of ways. The most common types are:

• CHRONIC STRESS (GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER) Characterized by high frequency and high-intensity anxiety, exaggerated worry and tension. Generalized anxiety disorder consists of realistic but excessive worry about everyday things like work, family, health money or school. The worry is out of proportion to the stressor, causing you to feel regularly on edge.
• PANIC ATTACKS (PANIC DISORDER) Acute episodes of intense panic and fear. A panic attack is an intense, sudden episode of anxiety and fear that often includes heart palpitation. A panic disorder is defined by repeated panic attacks.
• SOCIAL ANXIETY Characterized by emotional discomfort in group settings, often accompanied by the fear of being embarrassed or judged by others.
• POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) Results from experiencing a traumatic or life-threatening event. Symptoms include flashbacks or nightmares about the traumatic event, overactive startle response, hypervigilance and avoiding people or situations that might remind you of the event. Learn more about PTSD in the next section...
• OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER (OCD) Characterized by uncontrollable intrusive thoughts that are alleviated by some behavior. The thoughts are the obsessions, and the behaviors are the compulsions. The compulsion is meant to reduce the anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts.
• PHOBIAS Unrealistic and exaggerated fears of specific things, places or people. Phobic individuals usually know how unrealistic their fears are but cannot help their reactions.