Managing Anxiety with Therapy
Do you feel you need support with anxiety and stress? Are you looking for a service in London that helps you manage your anxiety and offers you counselling and psychotherapy?
On This Page
- Managing Anxiety with Therapy
- Client Reviews
- What is anxiety?
- Understanding the Fight-or-Flight Response
- Want Help Managing Anxiety?
- Recognising the Physical Sensations of Anxiety
- Identifying and Managing Triggers
- Shifting Unhelpful Thinking Patterns
- Why Counselling and Therapy For Stress and Anxiety?
- What to Expect from Anxiety Therapy
- FAQs
The emotional demands of stress can build over time. When high levels of stress and anxiety take control, this can affect our capacity to make decisions, our quality of life, our work and our relationships.
Do you find yourself dreading the next day at work or a social situation? Suffering from irrational fears, agitation, stress and feeling pressured? Perhaps you have noticed that you are living with a vague sense of danger, either imminent or projected into the future.
People who struggle with Managing Anxiety often experience a sense of dread or a feeling of being overwhelmed and lost. Anxiety manifests in many ways and has different root causes.
Client Reviews
“Counselling at Leone Centre not only supported me in managing my day-to-day anxiety but also gave me insights into some of the root causes of my issues…”
“helped me to learn about the physiological and psychological manifestations of stress and anxiety and to find ways to overcome. My confidence in work and in my relationships has improved as a result”
“developed my self-awareness and capacity to honour my qualities and achievements; my anxiety is not longer calling the shots and I am more in control of my life”
Read more reviews from verified users of our counselling services
What is anxiety?
Do you find yourself often worried, on edge and irritable? Are stress and anxiety impacting your relationships, your capacity to thrive or even function, your clarity of thinking and your overall enjoyment of life?
Fear is a natural and normal reaction at times of challenge and even danger. The response to a challenge or perceived danger is adrenalin-driven and reactive, bringing body and mind into survivor mode. This can, for instance, trigger the capacity for high levels of alert and an increased capacity for immediate decision-making. Such responses, however, should only be a short-term experience.
The human brain does not differentiate between life-threatening situations and perceived emotional threats. If you suffer from stress and anxiety, you might find that you are constantly in a state of overdrive or hypervigilance.
Do you avoid situations just because you feel anxious and find the stress unbearable? Do you use alcohol or drugs to self-soothe or to be able to be in a social situation?
One source of anxiety can be the fear of the unknown, a lack of control or the sense of not having enough time. Our own thinking and levels of consciousness trigger most experiences of anxiety.
Have you ever noticed some of the physical symptoms of stress and anxiety, like stomach pain or backaches, muscular tension, chest pains, shortness of breath and nausea?
The triggering of past traumatic and stressful events can also very quickly raise your levels of stress and anxiety. Specific phobias, panic attacks and hyper-vigilance or irrational fears are just some examples of challenging manifestations of anxiety.
Understanding the Fight-or-Flight Response
Anxiety is often connected to the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival instinct triggered by a perceived threat. This response activates the release of hormones, heightening our alertness and preparing us for action.
For some individuals, this response can remain heightened even when no real danger exists, leading to persistent feelings of unease, tension, and restlessness. The physical sensations associated with anxiety are directly linked to this heightened fight-or-flight response. Hormones like adrenaline are released, leading to symptoms like increased heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, and muscle tension.
It’s important to remember that these physical sensations, while uncomfortable, are a normal physiological response to a perceived threat and are not inherently dangerous.
Want Help Managing Anxiety?
The Leone Centre’s anxiety counselling will be able to work with you to identify the source of your struggles whilst helping you build a foundation for managing anxiety.
You can expect to work towards:
- Understanding the connection between thinking, feelings and behaviour
- Challenging unhelpful thinking habits
- Making conscious and responsive choices and decisions, rather than reactive ones
- Understanding yourself better
- Reframing your story
- Finding self-care and management strategies that are right for you
Perhaps you have had enough of feeling stressed and anxious and are ready to make some changes in your life.
Recognising the Physical Sensations of Anxiety
Anxiety often manifests through various physical sensations. These can include a tight chest, an unsteady heartbeat, or the commonly described “butterflies in the stomach.” It’s important to understand that these physical reactions are a normal part of the body’s response to stress.
Therapy can provide a safe and supportive environment to explore these physical sensations. A counsellor can guide you through techniques such as body scan meditations to help you become more aware of these sensations and learn to manage them. They can also help you challenge negative thoughts associated with physical sensations and teach you breathing and relaxation practices to regulate your breathing and reduce muscle tension.
Physical Symptoms of Stress and Managing Anxiety
- Fatigue
- Muscle tension, muscle pain or a tight chest
- Insomnia
- Tachycardia
- Physical restlessness
- Sweating, often in the palms and feet
- Trembling
- Digestion problems and stomach cramps
Behavioural and Emotional Symptoms of Stress and Anxiety
- Problems concentrating
- Restlessness
- Uncontrollable worry
- Feelings of panic, danger and a loss of control
- Social anxiety
- Avoiding situations that may cause anxiety
- Irritability
Counselling will focus on learning helpful skills to manage anxiety and also exploring more in-depth processes, early experiences and inner beliefs that might still be relevant to how you approach your life.
Paying attention to and focusing on the root causes of any experienced issues will help lay the foundations to reach and maintain long-term progress.
Identifying and Managing Triggers
Everyone experiences anxiety differently. For some, it arises in response to specific situations, such as crowded places or public speaking, while for others, it might feel more generalised or unpredictable. Identifying the moments, memories, or environments that provoke feelings of anxiety is an important step.
You can keep a journal to track your anxiety levels, situations, thoughts, and feelings to help you identify patterns and potential triggers. Common triggers include specific social situations, work deadlines, financial concerns, or certain physical environments.
Therapy can help you explore these triggers and understand their significance, enabling you to respond to them in ways that feel more manageable.
Shifting Unhelpful Thinking Patterns
Anxiety can lead to unhelpful thought patterns that can be difficult to break. These might include overthinking situations, imagining the worst, or doubting yourself unnecessarily. These patterns can create feelings of fear or dread that can be overwhelming.
Therapy provides a space to explore these patterns and understand their impact. A therapist might use cognitive restructuringCognitive Restructuring Cognitive restructuring in CBT is a therapeutic process which aims to identify and change negative thought patterns. This... More about this therapy to help you challenge and reframe negative thoughts. Additionally, therapists may use behavioural experimentsBehavioural Experiments in CBT Behavioural experiments are key approaches in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), designed to test and challenge unhelpful... More about this therapy to help you test your fears in real-life situations and develop more realistic beliefs.
Why Counselling and Therapy For Stress and Anxiety?
Working with professionals in London or online to manage anxiety will help identify the source of your thoughts and feelings and whether they are part of a recurring anxiety cycle.
Consulting a professional anxiety counsellor will ensure you address intrinsic beliefs, thought patterns and the triggers of your anxiety rather than just a quick fix for the symptoms of your struggles. Our anxiety therapists are integrative in their approach, using different counselling methods to understand and modify the thinking processes that might be feeding irrational feelings, dread, worry and anxiety.
Our professional counsellors will also work with some stress management techniques, paying attention to the mental, emotional and physical manifestations of anxiety. Similarly, we hope to provide you with some of the foundations and mechanisms to manage anxiety in the short and longer term.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an educational and practical approach that works well to manage anxiety. It looks at the relationship between thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and, consequently, your behaviour and choices. CBT for anxiety can connect unknown physical symptoms with anxious thoughts and root causes.
Anxiety is often affected by current stresses as well as past traumas; thus, CBT is an effective route for managing anxiety as well as is NHS recommended. At the Leone Centre, we aim to address the root of any symptoms directly and use an approach to ensure we help you the best way we can.
At your initial point of contact, Leone Centre will allocate a counsellor who will work using a collaborative, educational and explorative approach. We understand that the healing process is not one-size-fits-all and that there is no one best therapy for anxiety, as everyone is different.
As a comprehensive counselling and multi-specialist service, we are also able to help you with relationships and other dependencies that may have been impacted by anxiety.
What to Expect from Anxiety Therapy
Therapy for anxiety involves understanding your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours and exploring how they interconnect. It’s a collaborative process that focuses on uncovering what lies beneath the surface of your anxiety.
Therapy offers the opportunity to:
- Understand your unique experiences with anxiety.
- Explore physical sensations and their connection to your thoughts and emotions.
- Identify triggers and develop strategies to manage them.
- Shift unhelpful thinking patterns and cultivate more balanced perspectives.
- Learn practical techniques to regulate your physical and emotional responses to anxiety.
Through therapy, you can begin to create a foundation for long-term growth and resilience, supported by meaningful insights and self-awareness.
FAQs
What are some common physical sensations associated with anxiety?
Anxiety often involves various physical sensations, which are part of the body’s natural stress response. These can include feelings like “butterflies in the stomach”, a tight chest, or an unsteady heartbeat. It’s important to remember that these physical reactions are normal and not inherently dangerous, even though they can be uncomfortable.
A counsellor can help you explore and manage these physical sensations through techniques like body scan meditations, cognitive approaches to challenge negative thoughts about the sensations, and breathing and relaxation practices.
How can therapy help me address unhelpful thinking patterns related to anxiety?
Therapy offers a way to explore and shift unhelpful thought patterns that often accompany anxiety. These patterns might involve overthinking situations, imagining the worst-case scenarios, or experiencing unnecessary self-doubt.
A therapist might employ approaches like cognitive restructuring to help you challenge and reframe negative thoughts. For example, a thought like “I’m going to fail this presentation” could be reframed to “I’ve prepared well, and even if it doesn’t go perfectly, it’s a learning opportunity.”
Additionally, therapists may use behavioural experiments to help you test your fears in real-life situations and develop more realistic beliefs. For instance, if you’re afraid of social situations, a therapist might encourage you to engage in small social interactions and observe the outcomes.
What is the fight-or-flight response, and how does it relate to anxiety?
The “fight-or-flight” response is a survival instinct triggered by a perceived threat. When this response activates, the body releases hormones that increase alertness and prepare for action. In some individuals, this response can remain heightened even when there is no actual danger, leading to persistent feelings of unease, tension, and restlessness.
This heightened fight-or-flight response is directly linked to the physical sensations associated with anxiety. During this response, hormones like adrenaline are released, leading to symptoms like increased heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, and muscle tension.