Anxiety management and counseling
By: Alan Tsang, LPC
Living in Chicago can give us so many fun and wonderful opportunities. From exploring its many neighborhoods, to movies in the park, and let’s not forget the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, the city is huge!
Yet, with many of us needing to travel into the Loop for work, and figuring out the best plan of action to get to a social event way out in Wicker Park, sometimes trying to balance our personal and social lives in the Windy City can be pretty stressful place
What’s important to know is that anxiety isn’t as bad as we’d think it is. Basically, we’re talking about a constant worry about a specific issue, or thinking too much about the past or future. Doing so prevents us from focusing on what’s happening in the here and now, which is pretty important if we’re thinking about trying to focus on everything we need to focus on in your everyday life!
Anxiety can also help alert us of anything that might be harmful for us. But sometimes, there’s really no harm being done towards you. Your anxiety might be tricking you into believing it. Sometimes you might even experience anxiety at work of all places, and you might not know the reason.
I can totally understand that anxiety can be an all-consuming experience. Many people experience these common anxiety symptoms: palms sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy. Yes, that was a silly reference. But, excessive sweating, feeling fatigue or weakness and nausea is one of the physical symptoms of anxiety! In a nutshell, anxiety disorients your mind-body connection.
We want to help you understand where these jitters come from and expand your understanding By now, the question you might be asking yourself is: “How can therapy even help with my anxiety?!”
Here’s 5 ways counseling can help with it:
1. Skills-Based Approach
First and foremost, a therapist can introduce you to skills focused on topics such as mindfulness and distress tolerance to help you keep yourself grounded. In many cases, your therapist can work with you to practice those skills in session to help you figure out how to apply them in the real world. Maintaining control over the anxiety you feel is important because it helps send the message to your brain that the anxiety isn’t the one in control, you are.
2. Discuss Past Experiences
Perhaps there’s something unresolved in your life that is helping the anxiety manifest. Counseling can help you examine any possible struggles you have faced in the past so we can understand the “why” for your anxiety. Now, depending on who you are, this can range from a number of things like pressure to do well, or some similar past experiences. Or it can even come from having a transitional stage in your life. Bottom line is, the licensed counselor can work with you to find out what is bringing out your anxiety.
3. Quick Solution
Sometimes people might simply want to find a solution to resolve the presenting symptoms, which is fine! This can come from a therapist working with you to find good problem-solving techniques to help “unfreeze” you when you’re in that fight-or-flight mode.
4. Breathing Exercises
You’ve probably heard this one before. People who come into counseling for stress will usually learn breathing techniques they can use in their everyday life. There’s tons of different techniques. Most people might call it “diaphragmatic breathing” or simply “deep breathing techniques”.
There’s some science to this too. Simply put, low blood oxygen can impair your thinking and cause stress. The possible link here is that your brain might not be getting enough oxygen which can cause a lot of the physical effects of stress as well as the fear that goes hand in hand with it. Having a therapist teach you specific breathing skills can help you get more oxygen into your body and into your brain to help decrease your symptoms.
5. Name the Worry
Lastly, a counselor can help challenge you to call out the thing that might be worrying you. In a nutshell, this means reversing anxiety’s hold on your life and body and taking control over it. It’s hard to imagine how to fully function in everyday life when stress and anxiety is around every corner.
But being able to call it out, letting the fear and stress know you aren’t afraid of the irrational thoughts it’s giving you, is absolutely powerful in terms of taking back control.
Stress can be a tough experience to battle on your own, especially when you’re living in such a bustling city like Chicago. I and everyone else at 2nd Story would like to help you manage it. So if you’re here in The Windy City, struggling with stress and would like to reach out for assistance, I would encourage you to do just that! Feel free to fill out a confidential note or give a call at 773.528.1777.
Thanks for stopping by!
