Help with anxiety and depression

If you are looking for help with anxiety and depression, you are in the right place.

Are you suffering from the overwhelming effects of stress and anxiety? Then you are not alone.

Anxiety  attacks and anxiety disorders  are becoming more common place as the pressures of modern day life are outweighing the ability to cope by many people.

Stress is the physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms that arise from excessive pressures we feel unable to deal with.

Stress can cause anxiety and anxiety can cause stress!

If you need help to overcome your anxiety disorder or deal with personal or work-place stress then please give me a call. Making an appointment for a complementary chat to discuss your symptoms is your first step to resolving them!

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a term to describe a feeling of apprehension, worry or fear towards a given situation, event or object. Sometimes the anxiety is just a feeling of uneasiness, without a focus. We’ve all felt the normal emotion of fear when taking our driving test, sitting an exam or giving a presentation, but this fear is short lived. Prolonged Anxiety is different though and when it pervades our everyday life it can become exhausting. Feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope, exacerbated by little sleep gives rise to many symptoms.

Real Time Anxiety

As the heading suggests, you are in the given stressful situation now i.e. sat in the dentist’s chair, being called into your boss’s office, facing your bank manager. The fear you’re experiencing triggers your inbuilt stress response, otherwise known as your fight/flight response. See below for how this effects you.

Anticipatory Anxiety

This is where you are constantly worrying or brooding about a situation or an event in the future. It maybe days, weeks or even months away but you are imagining the event in a worst case scenario way . Interestingly people think by going over and over it in their minds may help them get control over the situation in some way, but all it does in effect is to build more and more anxiety towards it. Every time you think negatively, catastrophically and fearfully about something you are again and again triggering your stress response. Remember this threat is not real, it is a perceived threat, but your body responds as though you are in the threatening situation now.

The Stress Response

Also known as your fight/flight response this is a natural primitive bodily response. This response is triggered to real or perceived danger. The body responds to the perceived threat by a release of hormones, notably adrenaline,  to ready us for the physical action of fighting the threat or running the heck out! This was a great response to have in our caveman days to get us out of the danger of a woolly mammoth! Even now this response is entirely appropriate to a one off threat. Once the threat has passed the body quickly returns to normal, i.e. homoeostasis. However without the physical outlet for the body’s readiness to fight or run away, continued and relentless exposure to this cocktail of hormones due to anxiety can give rise to physical, psychological and behavioural symptoms.

What Causes Anxiety?

Simply put, it is our thinking styles and beliefs that we do not have the skills to cope in a given situation. Often we were not taught effective coping skills as a child, maybe we were overprotected or always had things done for us. Maybe we have some historical trauma we have not dealt with. However becoming aware of what makes you anxious and why and how your beliefs and thinking styles contribute to your anxiety can be the first steps to overcoming it. Living with these feelings day in and day out is exhausting and not helped by the fact you are probably unable to get a good nights sleep.

Anxiety disorders

The symptoms of anxiety disorders range from panic attacks, difficulties socialising, over controlling our environment, avoidance techniques, withdrawal from life, to name but a few. Anyone of these symptoms can make life very challenging for us.

Anxiety disorders include:-

• Panic Disorder
• Specific Phobias such as Emetophobia (fear of being sick)
• Social Anxiety/Social Phobia
• PTSD
• Agoraphobia
• Generalised Anxiety Disorder
• Obsessive Complusive Disorder (OCD)/Pure O

Panic attack symptoms

A panic attack is a sudden overwhelming feeling of intense anxiety and fear. The symptoms can be very intense and can last anywhere from a few to 20 minutes. If you have experienced any of these symptoms you know how scary it can feel.

• Sudden intense feeling of anxiety and panic
• Feeling rooted to the spot in total fear and panic, unable to move.
• Heart racing
• Feeling sick
• Chest pain
• Shortness of breath
• Choking feeling
• Sweating
• Shaking
• Numbness
• Tingly feeling accompanied by hot or cold flushes
• Sense that something bad will happen

The symptoms of a panic attack are very real, intense and quite frightening. These attacks can leave you fearful for another such panic attack, so much so that the fear is then self perpetuating and begins to take over the way you live your life.

You may find it very difficult to leave the safe confines of your home, fearing losing control and having an attack in a public place. Trapped in a cycle of worry and dread, always expecting the worst, leaves you unable to go about your daily life in a normal manner.

The Effects of Stress

Continually living with excessive pressures and anticipatory anxiety can give rise to a wide variety of symptoms including:-

Physical Effects

• Headaches/migraines
• Dizziness/blurred vision
• Hair loss
• Aches and Pains, particularly neck, shoulders and back pain
• Tiredness/Fatigue
• Nervous twitches
• Impotence
• Loss of libido
• Weakened immune system, colds/flu
• High blood pressure
• Chest pain
• Loss of appetite
• Indigestion
• Ulcers
• IBS
• Diarrhoea or constipation
• Rashes/skin allergies

Emotional Effects

• Anxiety
• Becoming withdrawn
• Loss of sense of humour
• Depression
• Mood swings
• Nervousness
• Tearful
• Anger
• Irrational responses
• Loss of self esteem
• Self Harm

Changes in Behaviour

• Lack of interest in previously enjoyed activities
• Indifference/apathy
• Loss of confidence
• Aggression/irritability
• Non communicative
• Changes in eating patterns
• Withdrawn
• Forgetfulness
• Unapproachable
• Sexual adventuring
• Insomnia
• Accident prone
• Lack of concentration
• Poor work performance
• Poor time keeping
• Absenteeism
• Denial
• Overspending
• Over indulgence, alcohol, drugs, self prescribed drugs

The Good News

Is that I can help you overcome your symptoms.  By working together I can help you understand the cause and effect of your stress and anxiety. Understanding how you tick, your thinking styles and belief systems can release you from your anxiety. During the sessions we will strengthen your psychological foundations which builds resilience and coping skills. These skills are so important for us to deal and cope with the excess pressures of modern day life.

The added benefit is an increase in your self esteem, confidence and overall feeling of well-being. This allows you to enjoy life as you deserve.

If you would like my help help with anxiety and depression call me or go to my contact page to make an appointment for a complementary consultation. You’ll be able to discuss your concerns in a friendly, caring, confidential environment. There is absolutely no obligation to proceed into treatment and the consultation is completely free. What have you got to lose?