Anxiety Therapy

Do you feel too stressed out to relax and enjoy your life? Are you having irrational, racing, or obsessive thoughts? Perhaps you find yourself catastrophizing, always expecting the worst to happen. Or maybe a sense of dread hangs over your life, and you find yourself unable to focus on work, school, or even relationships.

Dealing with anxiety is not only distracting, it’s painful—mentally and physically painful. In addition to panic attacks, chronic stress, and general irritability, anxiety can also cause sleep problems, lack of appetite, and even muscular tension. Oftentimes, anxiety and depression go hand in hand. With anxiety, however, depressive thoughts often spiral out of control, keeping you in a constant state of impending doom. As a result, you may find yourself withdrawing from social life and neglecting responsibilities. Unfortunately, doing so usually exacerbates fear, leads to lower self-esteem, and keeps you from addressing key problems in your life.

Your stress may be getting the best of you, but it doesn’t have to. With our approach to anxiety therapy, you can learn to stop worrying about the future and be present in the moment.

Living With Chronic Anxiety Is The New Normal In Our Busy World

Everyone experiences anxiety. Some of it is useful, hardwired into us by survival instinct. Anxiety drives us to take care of what’s important to us. The question is: are you in control of your anxiety, or is your anxiety controlling you? Is stress an occasional part of your life, or is an anxiety disorder consuming your life?

In a world of endless deadlines, appointments, bills to pay and mouths to feed, living with chronic anxiety has become the norm. Instead of being an outlying condition, anxiety is simply a normal response to the hustle and bustle of modern life. There are many reasons people experience unresolved stress—work issues, life transitions, medical problems, or family responsibilities. The longer stress goes unaddressed, the more it will impact your social life, relationships, and even your health.

Anxiety Backfire?

Sadly, many of the ways we choose to resolve our stress backfire on us. We may develop avoidance tactics or a resistance to address conflicts in our life. We may even develop unhealthy psychological coping mechanisms, such as drinking or drugs. Many people turn to marijuana expecting it to cure their anxiety. While marijuana has plenty of medical benefits, it often increases racing thoughts and aggravates mental tension.

Ultimately, most of us can’t overcome anxiety disorders without guidance or support. This isn’t simply because our coping mechanisms aren’t strong enough; it’s because we’re used to regarding everything we think as true. Our thoughts affect our feelings, but we’re generally not conditioned to question how we think. We may believe a coping mechanism is helpful, for instance, even if it’s not.   We are confident that, with our guidance, you can learn how to combat negative thinking and manage your anxiety.

Anxiety Therapy Can Help You Relax, De-Stress, And Identify Negative Habits

Anxiety therapy gives you a safe space to examine your thoughts, work on relaxation skills, and learn to tolerate different emotions. Our brains are busy places; sometimes, just like with a TV, we have to learn to change the channel—to replace old ways of thinking with new ones. In our therapy sessions, you will learn to challenge your thoughts and feelings, develop new coping mechanisms, and manage anxiety symptoms using breathing and grounding techniques.

Our approach to therapy is uniquely tailored to each client. We offer treatment for anxiety in a wide range of contexts—social anxiety, panic attacks, and even PTSD. If you’re dealing with panic attacks, for instance, We can teach you focused-breathing exercises to prevent an episode from happening. If your anxiety stems from PTSD—or from any past experiences, for that matter—we will explore how your past affects your symptoms and may be inhibiting psychological growth. Ultimately, our goal is to help you develop healthy coping mechanisms so you can confidently manage your anxiety outside of our sessions.

Anxiety Approaches

We are well-versed in a variety of different approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, (CBT), Mindfulness Therapy, and Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). CBT is a form of talk therapy that aims to understand how negative thought patterns affect our feelings. Mindfulness, meanwhile, cultivates practical relaxation skills to keep your anxiety at bay, such as meditation and yoga. Finally, internal family systems therapy (IFS) focuses on how your personality is composed of different subsets with very specific functions. For instance, you may have developed a tendency to flee from stressful situations. While fleeing may serve a healthy function in one respect—by keeping you safe—it may not serve a healthy function in others. It could impede growth in your relationships by holding you back from addressing conflict. In this way, IFS helps you understand how each aspect of your personality can be harmful or beneficial in different contexts.

By heightening your awareness of negative thought patterns and learning time-tested strategies to keep them under control, you really can win the battle over your anxiety. With our care and support, you can shift your perspective, overcome negative coping habits, and lead a confident, joyful life.

You may have some concerns about anxiety therapy…

Will therapy make my anxiety worse?

No, it won’t. The relaxation techniques we use have been clinically-proven to reduce tension. The coping skills we teach you will specifically deal with how to manage your anxiety when it does feel worse. Yes, people have a tendency to dwell on what’s bothering them, but anxiety therapy won’t just be focused on your thoughts. It will also involve applying the skills and strategies you’ve learned here to your everyday life.

What if my depression is worse than my anxiety?

Depression and anxiety are like a married couple in the world of mental health. It’s common for people to experience both, since depressive thoughts fuel anxiety by triggering unwanted emotions. If you’re experiencing both depression and anxiety, or even if you’re not sure which one is affecting you more, counseling can help regardless. You may find many of the same techniques that reduce anxiety symptoms also reduce depressive ones.

How long will it take before I start feeling better?

Most clients start feeling better after the first few sessions. This is because our sessions are heavy on practical application, equipping you to deal with stress in day-to-day life. Of course, no one’s timetable is exactly alike. Sometimes the greatest healing of all occurs slowly, incrementally, by taking baby steps to correct our thinking and change our behavior.

We offer treatment in both our Lakewood & Longmont offices

Take the first step, when you are ready to contact us, we invite you to call us at 720-551-4553 for a free 20-minute phone consultation.  We offer counseling in Lakewood & Longmont Colorado or virtually.  You can schedule your appointment via phone, email, or the contact page on our website.  We look forward to hearing from you!