4 Ways Therapy Helps You Address Anxiety
Many people deal with stress and anxiety on a daily basis. Whether it’s a result of an anxiety disorder, life stressors or post-traumatic stress, anxiety can take a toll on our physical and mental health.
If you deal with anxiety, you most likely have looked into ways you can help calm what can feel like an emotional rollercoaster. Perhaps you’ve even tried some self-help techniques in the past. While these methods can provide some relief, they are not a substitute for working with a trained therapist.
To address overwhelming anxiety once and for all, you’ve got to get to the root cause of it – the underlying factors. A therapist can help you identify and address those underlying factors and learn new, effective skills for managing anxiety symptoms when they arise.
If you are struggling to manage anxiety on your own, there are 4 ways therapy can help.
1. Learn About Your Anxiety
One of the most important steps in learning to address and manage anxiety is to gain a better understanding of what anxiety is and learn to recognize when it’s happening. Working with a skilled anxiety therapist, you will gain insight into the physical and emotional signs that your anxiety needs attention. You will also learn to recognize anxiety triggers so you can learn to interact with them in a different way.
2. Uncover Root Causes
Like any other health issue, effective treatment gets to the root cause. For instance, your doctor can either prescribe a medication to try and manage your hypertension symptoms, or she can suggest adjustments to diet, exercise and stress management, addressing the root causes of your high blood pressure.
A therapist will assist you in accessing your emotional world so you can observe your thoughts and feelings and uncover patterns. Often, unhealthy beliefs and thoughts lie at the root of anxiety. Once you identify the factors that are contributing to your anxiety, you and your therapist can begin to create a plan to help you face these underlying issues calmly and confidently.
3. Therapy Helps You Change Your Behaviors
We’ve just talked a little about therapy helping you uncover the thoughts and beliefs that can contribute to your anxiety. Those thoughts and beliefs are not only making you feel bad, they are causing you to engage in certain behaviors that may result in negative consequences.
For instance, for some people anxiety leads to avoidance of social connections. Therapy can help you make lifestyle and behavioral changes. You’ll learn skills to cope with difficult situations in a healthy way. Therapy can help you to stop avoiding and face anxiety-provoking situations with confidence, knowing you have the tools and support to do so.
4. Therapy Offers Continued Personalized Support
All change is hard, even change that’s ultimately good for you. Therapy for anxiety will challenge you to practice new ways of interacting with yourself and the world. One of the biggest benefits of therapy is that it offers continual personalized support. Therapy should be a safe space for you to be honest about your experience and receive the support you need. Your therapist wants to see you succeed and will offer encouragement and education without judgment.
If you’ve been living with anxiety, know that you don’t have to deal with it alone. If you or a loved one is interested in exploring treatment, please contact Desert Lotus Counseling today. We would be happy to speak with you about how we may be able to help.