OUR THERAPIES
Anxiety – Panic Attack – Phobias
Anxiety is a feeling we all get in a situation that is threatening or difficult. The anxiety stops when you get used to the situation, when the situation changes, or if you just leave.
But if you feel anxious all the time, or for no obvious reason, it can make life difficult.
This information deals with three particular kinds of anxiety:
Anxiety
Anxiety is a normal and often healthy emotion. However, if you regularly feel disproportionate levels of anxiety, it might become a disorder. Anxiety disorders form a category of mental health diagnoses that lead to excessive nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worry. These disorders alter how a person processes emotions and behave, also causing physical symptoms. Mild anxiety might be vague and unsettling, while severe anxiety may seriously affect day-to-day living.
Panic attacks
You get unpredictable, sudden and intense attacks of anxiety – often in a situation that is likely to make you anxious. The feelings come on suddenly and reach a peak in 10 minutes or less. You may also feel:
About a quarter of people who go to an emergency department with chest pain thinking that they may be having a heart attack are actually having a panic attack.
Although the symptoms are much the same as those of anxity, they are much more powerful and only last a short time.
Phobia
You feel really frightened of something that is not actually dangerous and which most people do not find troublesome.
The nearer you get to the thing that makes you anxious, the more anxious you get … and so you tend to avoid it. Away from it you feel fine.
Common phobias include:
Standard treatment for anxiety involves psychological counseling and therapy.
This might include psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or a combination of psychotherapy and counseling. CBT aims to recognize and alter the harmful thought patterns that can trigger an anxiety disorder and troublesome feelings, limit distorted thinking, and change the scale and intensity of reactions to stressors. This helps people manage the way their body and mind react to certain triggers.
Psychotherapy is another treatment that involves talking with a trained mental health professional and working to the root of an anxiety disorder. Sessions might explore the triggers of anxiety and possible coping mechanisms. At Roots Wellness Center we use a combination of relaxation and biofeedback techniques in addition to traditional psychotherapy in order to attain lasting treatment.