Anxiety Treatment in Victoria BC
“Some of the worst things in my life never actually happened.”
- Mark Twain
Do you get caught up worrying about future events? Thinking about every possible thing that could go wrong, playing these out over and over again?
Or maybe you create lists and plans in order to feel in control? Maybe your anxiety has gotten so unbearable that now you just avoid situations that stir it up altogether such as new social engagements, heated conversations, or travelling. Gosh, just writing this gives me a pit in my stomach and a tightness in my throat. I promise you are not alone in feeling this way.
It’s normal for your mind to spend time in the future, this is how you protect yourself from anticipated threats and challenges (you can thank your brain for looking out for you). But when you allow yourself to spend too much time there, ruminating on scenarios that haven’t even occurred yet, it can start to take away from the quality of your daily life.
When you imagine these stressors before they actually occur you are essentially putting yourself through them twice – your brain can’t tell the difference between real or imagined stress! That means that worrying about scenarios actually causes a physiological stress response in your body, causing the release of stress hormones, the engagement of fight or flight response, and increases in breathing & heart rate. If you aren’t paying attention, your automatic reaction may be to quell these feelings of discomfort through coping mechanisms of avoidance or numbing, such social withdrawal, circumventing tasks, scrolling, binge-ing, and substance use to name a few.
Eventually you may decide these coping mechanisms aren’t working for you anymore.
You want more out of life. To experience all it has to offer without feeling held back by fear. Fear is the key word here. Letting go of anxiety means living life as fully as you would if you didn’t fear the future. I ask my clients, and now you: “What would you do if you had no fear?”
Exploring healthy ways of combating anxiety can be approached in many ways such as recognising the symptoms of it growing in the body, using self-talk to evaluate the true severity of the perceived threat, sitting with the feelings, imagery exposure, and practising mindfulness with the intent of bringing the brain state back to the present.