It seems like there are just some days you wake up more anxious than usual, and you don’t really understand why. Maybe there are days where you wake up more on the anxious side, and you have a good guess why but are trying not to think about that. It could also be that a situation increases your anxiety, and it feels unmanageable. Anxiety serves a purpose at times but sometimes it feels excessive and overwhelming.
Anxiety can be kind of complicated. In the work I do with my clients, I view anxiety as a symptom. As a therapist, I generally see there is a trigger for anxiety that may not be as obvious as we would like it to be. The clients I work with typically feel anxious about the following things.
Causes of anxiety:
Job/employment
Finances
Family Relationships
Strained relationship with a partner
Friendships
Worrying about children
Previous trauma resurfacing
Body image
Eating
Religious/spiritual beliefs
School/education
Dating
What happens to your body with anxiety?
Our brains don’t know when a situation is truly dangerous or not based on what we tell it so it responds as if you are in danger and there is a threat. It doesn’t know if you’re anxious about what you look like that day or you’re dreading a conversation with your boss. Your brain thinks a bear is about to attack and is preparing to fight the bear. When you are anxious, your breathing and heart rate speed up. Blood rushes to your head in preparation for you to handle the threat. It can lead to feeling nauseous and lightheaded. Anxiety can have a significant impact on your digestive system where you might experience stomach aches, loss of appetite, and diarrhea.
With these symptoms, it’s hard to feel that anxiety is helpful, and I definitely don’t blame you. It might be helpful to understand that this is a natural response for your body when it’s under high stress and anxiety. There are actions we can take to calm these responses down when they are triggered.
5 Tips for Calming Down
Slow down your breathing
As we just talked about earlier, anxiety speeds up our breathing so we need to find ways to slow it down. There are many deep breathing exercises you could try to make this happen. I would recommend pulling up youtube if you want to learn how to do these exercises and have someone to help guide you through them. The following breathing exercises to try: box breathing, belly breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, alternate nostril breathing, and lion’s breathe. Try these out and find the ones you like the most. Remember slowing your breath cues your body’s parasympathetic nervous system, which is the brain’s way of calming your stress responses down. I didn’t try deep breathing for a long time because I didn’t understand how it actually made sense.
Mindfulness
First of all, don’t knock it until you try it. Mindfulness has focused on reducing stress, and it works. Not only does it work but it changes your brain in other aspects of your life, and it’s amazing. There’s a TED Talk I recommend that might be helpful in understanding this called, “The Power of Mindfulness: What You Practice Grows” that will help you understand more of how it impacts the brain. In instances of anxiety, being mindful helps bring you back to the present moment. When we are anxious, often times our brain is focusing on the past or on the future but not the present moment. To get started with mindfulness, I recommend the “Insight Timer” app. It has mindfulness meditation practices that are timed but aren’t too long. They are also categorized by topic so you can find one that suits your fancy.
Bilateral Stimulation
This term just means stimulating alternative sides of the brain. We do this all the time without knowing it. Some examples of bilateral stimulation are walking, snapping our fingers back and forth, tapping one knee at a time, juggling, typing, dancing, reading, etc. Bilateral stimulation is what we use in EMDR therapy to help process trauma. When we want to help with calming, we use slower bilateral stimulation. This can decrease anxiety by creating distance between worry and stress and helping you relax. Finding a bilateral stimulation activity that you enjoy can be a helpful approach to take. I have had clients who enjoy playing the piano, taking the dog on a walk, dancing to music, listening to music on earphones, etc. Spend as much time as necessary trying different techniques to ease your anxiety.
Self-Compassion
I have written about self-compassion and why you need it here before, and I want to reiterate again why it’s essential especially when you are feeling anxious. If you are berating yourself and trying to tell yourself you’re being stupid for the way you think, not only is it not going to work, it’s going to make you feel even more stressed. You don’t deserve to feel worse than you already are feeling. Be kind to yourself. Validate your emotions. Even if you don’t feel like being gentle with yourself do it anyway. You are going through a lot right now, and it really is ok. There is nothing wrong with you for feeling anxious or worried. I know you don’t want to feel this way. If you need to say statements to yourself repeatedly, do that before you give yourself critical thoughts. Some positive statements I like are: “I am having a hard time right now, and that’s ok” “I am allowed to feel the way I do” or “I am worthy of compassion, and I will treat myself with kindness.” Choose a statement or create one of your own that you feel like you can connect to and repeat rather than your unkind thoughts.
Thought Diffusion
Changing your thoughts sometimes feels impossible. It seems you can try it, and it works for a little bit before they start showing up repeatedly. Honestly, sometimes this really isn’t worth your energy because it can make you feel more and more defeated. If changing your thoughts and choosing something else to think about helps you, by all means, do it. Sometimes it will be helpful to change the channel on your brain and think about your favorite vacation or someone you love. If this isn’t effective, I like to utilize thought diffusion. Thought diffusion is a skill to create distance between your thoughts. Another youtube video to help you understand this concept is “Passengers On A Bus - an Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) Metaphor”. We can have thoughts floating around in our brains, but it doesn’t mean we have to listen to them. A thought diffusion technique that I like is talking to your anxious thoughts like you would a little child. You can give those thoughts awareness and compassion and respond with something like, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I know it’s important, but I really don’t need it right now. I will take, it from here” or you can repeat the thoughts you are having in a different accent, or you can sing the thoughts you are having. These are all techniques you can do to decrease the impact and intensity anxious thoughts might have on you.
Maple Canyon Therapy’s approach to anxiety treatment
I believe some of us are prone to be more anxious than others. It can be part of your temperament but if your anxiety is on average, an 8 every day, I want to help you get it down to a 3 or lower. The approach I utilize with my clients is helping them find a balance between coping with their anxiety but also getting to the roots of it too. Anxiety is often related to other experiences in your life that haven’t been properly healed before. I believe working through those negative experiences and trauma in your life that are still painful or elicit strong emotions using EMDR can contribute to having less anxiety. No matter what, I believe in going at your pace and focusing on the things you want to.
Ready to try anxiety therapy in Utah?
You don’t have to keep feeling overwhelmed by anxiousness. Therapy can give you relief. This Utah County Counseling Center has an anxiety therapist specializing in anxiety treatment. To begin therapy, follow the steps below:
Complete online forms and schedule your first appointment with an anxiety specialist
Start working on reducing your anxiety!
Online anxiety Therapy in Utah
Finding a therapist that you feel understands you and knows how to treat your anxiety isn’t always easy or convenient. I want you to feel safe and comfortable in therapy, and I want it to be accessible for you. This is why I provide online therapy in Utah. Online counseling is just as effective as in-person therapy without traveling or commuting.
Online therapy allows me to work with you when you are located in Logan, Salt Lake City, Heber, St. George, Cedar City, and more.
Other mental health services offered at Maple Canyon Therapy
Anxiety treatment isn’t the only counseling service offered at this Provo Area Counseling Clinic. Other mental health services provided by Maple Canyon Therapy include body image therapy, EMDR therapy for birth trauma, binge eating disorder treatment, and eating disorder therapy in Utah.
About the Author
Ashlee Hunt LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Maple Canyon Therapy near Provo, Utah. Ashlee holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, a bachelor’s degree in Family Life and Human Development, and a master’s in social work. Ashlee has extensive training and experience in working with women who deal with anxiety, including dating anxiety, high functioning anxiety, and performance anxiety. Ashlee believes in teaching coping skills balanced with digging deeper into why triggers for anxiety show up. When Ashlee isn’t doing therapy, she enjoys exploring Utah and enjoys hiking the Grotto Falls Trail in Santaquin.