Living with anxiety can be uncomfortable and often be disconcerting in and of itself…
Common symptoms associated with anxiety include varying degrees of the following:
- Feelings of fear, panic, and hyper-alertness.
- Sleep difficulties
- Cold or sweaty hands and/or feet.
- Shortness of breath.
- Heart palpitations, chest pains.
- Restlessness
- Dry mouth
- Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet.
You might notice, anxiety is as much a physical reaction, as an emotional one. Experiencing anxiety can be related to several different causes. Its onset is sometimes due to our bodies normal reaction to perceived traumatic events in our lives. Sometimes, however, our anxiety can persist after the traumatic event is over, and interfere with our daily functioning.
At other times, we may not be able to pin point a cause to our anxiety, but feel its persistent presence. Psychotherapy exercises such as Focusing or Mediation and personal explorations facilitated and developed within the context of a trusting relationship with a trained therapist, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) have the potential to help alleviate anxiety symptoms.
Finally, sometimes reflecting on difficult experiences within our unique social/cultural and familial contexts with a trained professional context, can also sometimes help gain some perspective on distressing thoughts surrounding the situations and circumstances that heighten our anxiety or distress.
Sometimes people have a array of coping skills, and spiritual resources to draw from but temporarily feel unable to initiate these due to their impaired sense of themselves. Psychotherapy can often facilitate a recovery of oneself in the midst of their distress, restoring initiative and (re)discovering places and spaces of support in times of distress.
