THERAPY FOR ANXIETY
Anxiety, the debilitating exercise of constantly wondering what’s next.
Often, our experience comes with jittery body feelings. The thready heart rate, sweating, shaking, creates a very unsettling event for us. When our mind and body combine it can be very difficult to understand and then counter. Anxiety takes us out of the present into a place where we have fear or trepidation about anything and everything we can consider. Our minds are so powerful they can imagine all outcomes and attach feelings every time for every possible end. Why do we do this when it is not helpful? Why do we focus on the negative outcomes if it produces stress? Our instinct to predict the future and prepare ourselves is natural and it is there to help us avoid repeating painful or dangerous experiences.
Unfortunately, we can find this aspect of our minds taking over so much that it intrudes on our present. We find ourselves unable to complete tasks or focus on what is right in front of us. Our mental and physical capacities are taken up by all the possible negative predictions and imagery along with “what can I do about it” questions. This can hurt us and those around us in every category of our lives. It seems counter intuitive that our brain can do such a thing to us, while trying to help us.
The stoics say that anxiety is born in the future and is therefore by definition imaginary, because it is only available in our minds.
This thing we are thinking about has not happened yet, the only thing that is real AND happening now is the present. Our focus is shifted toward something we cannot fight against and our brains are trying so hard to fight it, that we can’t seem to do much else.
DISCOVER THE TOOLS TO COUNTER ANXIETY TODAY.
We have tools to help counter the body flood that accompanies anxiety, the first of which is breathing down our heart rates. If we can breathe down our rate, our brains will stop dumping the chemicals that create all of those body feelings that are so unsettling. There is more to this of course but the key elements of treating anxiety, bringing down our heart rate, shifting our focus to the present, and disrupting the unhelpful thought processes, are available to everyone and can be learned. The brain can be retrained and taught a new thought pathway to travel down in place of the unhelpful ones. Let us work together to find peace in your thoughts so you can focus on what is important to you.