Anxiety is a state of emotional arousal that activates the autonomic nervous system and revs up the body’s fight-flight-freeze response. This is the system our body uses to help us focus and target our energy when we are faced with a threat. We need this system to survive. However, for many individuals non-lethal threats such as an overdue assignment, social rejection, unpaid bills can evoke the felt experience of panic. When this happens our focus shifts to thinking incessantly about the threat. We may ruminate and replay scenarios to try to solve the problem. Blood leaves our brains and begins to fill our body and we may experience tightness in our muscles and tension in our head and neck. We might breathe more rapidly and feel our heart racing faster. Sometimes these symptoms get so bad that we might ‘fight’ or aggressively try to resolve the stressor by overworking, overcompensating, and overpromising things. Other times we may ‘freeze’ and procrastinate any problem solving. Other times we might flee and avoid the stressor. Anxiety is not necessarily the response itself, but the arousal that drives the response.  We need this arousal to work, learn, and be productive. It only becomes a problem when it significantly interferes with our functioning. When this happens, therapy can be helpful to learn to regulate your body’s response to stress.

Our therapists help treat anxiety by assessing the severity of your systems and determining the cause. Sometimes there are specific thoughts that drive anxiety such a perfectionism, low self-esteem, and fear of specific experiences. Other times, anxiety is imposed by others via pressure, demands, and expectations. This form of anxiety is often caused by poor boundaries with others (e.g. failing to set limits, difficulty saying no, or feeling responsible for other’s lives). However, for some, there is no apparent cause and the body may activate due to inherited traits and other biological factors. Our therapists will work with clients to learn how to calm their body with meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and deep breathing, as well as proactively address causes of anxiety such as poor boundaries, unrealistic expectations, perfectionism, low self-esteem, family stress, extreme thinking, all-or-none thinking etc.