Anxiety, not unlike the fight, flight, or freeze response, is a survival mechanism that allows people to protect themselves in order to avoid suffering, but sometimes a person repeatedly and unnecessarily experiences extreme levels of the fear and worry associated with anxiety and feels helpless to alleviate the symptoms.
Worrying can be helpful when it spurs you to take action and solve a problem.
But if you’re preoccupied with “what ifs” and worst-case scenarios, worry becomes unhelpful and actually harmful. Unrelenting doubts and fears can be paralyzing, sap your emotional energy, send your anxiety (link to anxiety page) levels soaring, and interfere with your daily life. But chronic worrying is a mental habit that can be broken. You can train your brain to stay calm and look at life from a more positive perspective.
I can’t stop worrying!
Constant worrying takes a heavy toll. It keeps you up at night and makes you tense and edgy during the day. You hate feeling like a nervous wreck. So why is it so difficult to stop worrying?
For most chronic worriers, the anxious thoughts are fueled by the beliefs—both negative and positive—they hold about worrying.
On the negative side, you may believe that your constant worrying is harmful, that it’s going to drive you crazy or affect your physical health. Or you may worry that you’re going to lose all control over your worrying—that it will take over and never stop.
On the positive side, you may believe that your worrying helps you avoid bad things, prevents problems, prepares you for the worst, or leads to solutions.
Negative beliefs, or worrying about worrying, add to your anxiety and keep worry going. But positive beliefs about worrying can be just as damaging. It’s tough to break the worry habit if you believe that your worrying protects you. In order to stop worry and anxiety for good, you must give up your belief that worrying serves a positive purpose. Once you realize that worrying is the problem, not the solution, you can regain control of your worried mind.
Counseling for anxiety will help you:
- Uncover the underlying causes of your worries and fears
- Develop new, more positive and less frightening, ways of seeing situations
- Learn how to relax whenever and wherever you are
- Develop better coping and problem-solving skills
- Find the confidence to engage in new social situations and relationships
- Relate to yourself in gentler, more compassionate ways
Our staff of trained experienced counselors can teach you effective and simple techniques to make your anxiety and worry more manageable. We accept many forms of insurance and have evening and weekend appointments for your convenience. Contact us to make an appointment, we are ready to help you get started.
