Anxiety Counseling

Common Symptoms of Anxiety

Everyone experiences anxiety. It is meant to be a motivator for action. If a big stressor, like an interview, test, or event is coming up we will feel anxiety, which is meant to motivate us to prepare for it. This preparation helps alleviate the anxiety and many of us will successfully face the challenge. Counseling for anxiety can fill in the gaps and help you experience challenge in this way.

Some of us feel anxiety for many different things, big and small. Sometimes, we even know that the anxiety is not proportionate to the stressor, but we experience it none the less. Anxiety that causes us to freeze or that is so overwhelming that we do not or cannot face the challenges in our lives requires extra help. Learning how to manage anxiety is key to decreasing the intensity and frequency of these symptoms. At Nacogdoches Counseling Services, you can work with a counselor to discover new ways to cope with life’s stressors and find your joy and peace again or for the first time.

• Feeling tense. Our bodies feel twisted, tight, and in a knot.
• Impending sense of doom or panic. You’re not quite sure what is causing the feeling and you cannot predict when the bad thing or things will happen, but you know it will at any moment
• Increased heart rate, sweating, and rapid breathing. You feel like you have just been sprinting, but you the feeling is not decreasing though you are at rest.
• Gastrointestinal stress. Anxiety can even cause upset stomachs. It can be a full body experience.
• Feeling weak. No matter how much sleep, water, or food you get, you feel shaky and weak.
• Trouble sleeping. You feel exhausted all day, but as soon as you climb into bed you are wide awake and you just cannot shut off.
• Excessive worry. You worry about everything and are often even aware of disconnect between the size of the issue and the volume of your worry.

Anxiety Counseling

Anxiety counseling usually starts with exploring when you feel anxious. It can be difficult to determine the details, but the anxiety counselor will assist you to determine the “triggers” that lead to increased or sustained anxiety symptoms. It’s also important to determine the unique way you experience symptoms in order to begin to put together the counseling plan and identify your goals. Your unique plan is your map to change.

The first step in moving toward your counseling goals, is to learn coping skills. Immediately learning new ways to cope will move you faster toward relief and healing. Some of the tools used in anxiety counseling are learning how to self-care, exposure and relaxation, and mindfulness and grounding.

The next step in anxiety counseling focuses on prevention, along side treatment. Prevention includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which focuses on identifying the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors involved in the cycle of anxiety.