Anxiety feels ... awful. Let's dramatically reduce it together.

Anxiety can sometimes be a healthy reaction in response to a perceived or legitimate threat.  For example, if your young child is close to the edge of a pool, it's incredibly useful to feel anxious and on high alert as it can save a life. 

However...

The anxiety I want to focus on reducing SIGNIFICANTLY for you, your child, and/or your loved one(s) is the kind that tends to plague us physically and emotionally. You might feel unable to calm your thoughts down. You might be dealing with very scary or concerning intrusive thoughts. You might be terrified of death. You might be unable to stop keeping yourself so busy you never have to stop and sit with your feelings. Whatever form(s) you are experiencing, I want to help you get on a path toward healing your mind, body, and nervous system.

When is anxiety a disorder?

· When anxiety is overblown compared to actual danger.

· Anxiety consistently appears in certain situations.

· Symptoms of panic disorder must be present for at least a month.

· Person is really upset by anxiety or it gets in the way of a person’s regular activities.

 Types of Anxiety Disorders:

· Specific phobia: involves excessive anxiety and strong irrational fear of an object or a scenario

· Social Anxiety Disorder: strong fear of social scenarios, fear is often embarrassment

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

· Persistent and pervasive worry is the hallmark of GAD

· Excessive and hard to control worry, trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, and feeling tired all the time.

· Anxiety is spread over multiple areas thus generalized with a grinding dread of all kinds of what ifs. 

Panic Disorder

 Bouts of fear seemingly out of nowhere with clear and sudden onset. (only 1 in 6 people who have a panic attack have panic disorder). Attacks must have repeatedly and be unexpected; worried about having more panic attacks or change their behavior. For example: avoid driving in certain times of the day. Urge to avoid panic can be so strong that it leads to a condition called agoraphobia.

· A panic attack is not subtle. Body sympathetic nervous symptom launches a fight or flight response, releasing chemicals like adrenaline to prepare us to deal with danger. Common effects: heart beats faster and stronger; derealization: feeling that reality is bending or depersonalization, which is a feeling where you are not connected to your body. 

· Dizziness, feeling lightheaded, sweat more, self-consciousness; digestive systems are affected which can cause nausea or diarrhea; muscles tense to prepare for action which can cause trembling. 

· Once the attack is winding down, we may feel exhausted from stress and strain of panic. We may cry as activity increases in the parasympathetic nervous system which calms us down. 

Agoraphobia

· Avoiding places where we think it would be bad to panic or do something else embarrassing like having uncontrollable diarrhea. 

· Avoid things like public transportation, movie theaters, lines at grocery store. Anxiety and avoidance are so strong that a person will avoid leaving the house for years.