Does Anxiety Have More Control Over Your Body Than You Do?
Do you feel constantly ramped up and unable to relax? When you do find a free moment or have time to slow down, do you feel guilty for not being "productive"? Is feeling nervous, fearful or even panicky a chronic emotional state for you?
Perhaps constant hypervigilance prevents your body from resting or sleeping soundly. Or maybe you suffer from the sudden onset of physical symptoms of anxiety, like a pounding heart, headaches, stomach pain or other gastrointestinal issues. Mentally, you may feel like you are constantly falling short of expectations set by yourself or others.
Some anxiety is normal, but experiencing it intensely, excessively or for prolonged periods of time not only means you aren’t living your best life, it also means you could potentially develop physical health problems down the road.
Whether It's Fear or Anxiety, the Effects On Us Are Similar
Any threat, whether real or perceived, is going to mobilize our defenses, which are hard wired deep in our brains. When the threat is actually real, we want that fight/flight reaction to happen because it’s either going to eliminate the threat or get us away from it. We don’t want to get rid of or inhibit that kind of life preserving response. But what about when we logically know the threat isn’t an actual life threat but our system still reacts as if it is? Then we know we’re dealing with the kind of anxiety that affects over 40 million adults every year in the U.S.
Often Times, It's Not Just Anxiety
It's bad enough to be living with chronic, intense or prolonged anxiety but, often times, it's also about more than that. There is usually a sequela of internal experiences that accompany anxiety. First there is the known or unknown trigger, which can be internal or external to us. Then there is the anxiety and all that goes with that. And then comes the aftermath: cue self-criticism, shame and/or self-loathing. We all know about the common symptoms of anxiety, the ones most often listed on informational websites about anxiety but at The Body Mind Center, we go further.
Did you know that Fight and Flight are just part of the story when it comes to how our system copes?
Three additional ones that don't get as much attention are: Attach/Cry for Help, which is interpersonally oriented, Freeze, and Submit/Collapse.
Therapists at The Body Mind Center assess and explore to what extent all parts of your defensive subsystem, not just the Fight and Flight parts, may have gone awry. Why would something hardwired in your brain go awry? Because of trauma, genetics, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), PTSD, or a combination thereof.
The following are just a few of the signs suggesting something may be amiss:
Attach/Cry for Help: feeling abandoned, chronic pain conditions, intensely seeking connection and feeling panicked when it doesn't happen
Fight: a vicious inner critic, controlling behavior, blaming/judging others, angry, mistrustful, self-destructive
Flight: excessive time on electronics, "workaholic", perfectionism, being constantly busy, ambivalent, can't commit
Freeze: anxieties, panic, terror states, wariness, frozen, phobia of being seen
Submit/Collapse: toxic shame, numbing, dissociation, brain fog, chronic depression, self-loathing, "please and appease"
Therapists at The Body Mind Center seek to understand how your life experiences may have set in motion what we believe are your brain's adaptive, albeit problematic ways of functioning; the fallout of which is or has been negatively affecting your life.
Treatment For Anxiety Is Effective
The Body Mind Center will work with you to create a treatment plan, taking into account the aforementioned factors, that are contributing to your feelings of panic and/or anxiety.
Using trauma informed approaches, like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and other body-based modalities, the therapists and counselors at The Body Mind Center will first help you gain a neuropsychological understanding of what is happening in your brain and body when anxiety occurs. We will then teach you the tools needed to recognize and reduce anxious thinking, remove the obstacles causing emotional "congestion" and calm your body's reactivity.
Therapists at The Body Mind Center will help you find that space. In that space we will apply our expertise to help your system reset thereby increasing your power to choose your response instead of your response being hijacked by the body mind.
Perhaps you are considering treatment for anxiety, but you are not sure if counseling is right for you…
Given the amount of stress I am under, it’s hard to believe that change is actually possible. What’s the point of seeking treatment for my anxiety?
Experts in Medicine and Psychology now know about the toll stress, anxiety, and trauma takes on the body. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES), done in the mid-1990's, demonstrated a clear connection between adverse childhood events and physical health problems in later adulthood. It emphasized the importance of prevention and early intervention with children to minimize their chances of going on to develop potentially serious health problems in later adulthood: problems that can show up in our central nervous system, cardiovascular, excretory and digestive systems, immune and respiratory systems.
But what about us adults, for whom the time for prevention and early intervention has long passed? The good news is there's hope for us too!
Thanks to neuroplasticity, our biology is not our destiny. We can literally do things that can change (i.e., rewire) our brains, the results of which can be our brains function more efficiently, our emotions feel more regulated and our body systems can become healthier.
How long does anxiety treatment take?
It varies, depending on the wiring of your brain. The less ACEs you experienced, the less time treatment will take. Regardless of the duration of treatment, however, you will leave therapy from The Body Mind Center with a new skill set for dealing with anxiety and life stressors, skills that will continue to work throughout your lifetime.
I am concerned about the cost of therapy or counseling for anxiety.
Cost is definitely an issue. That said, therapy is an opportunity for you to invest in your mental and physical health, which means you are taking care of your brain, your emotions and your body; ALL of which are priceless. And given what we also now know about ACEs, it's an investment none of us can afford to miss.
You Don't Have to Suffer; Let The Body Mind Center Help You
If symptoms of panic and anxiety take over in moments of stress, or if you find that you simply cannot relax, anxiety treatment with a therapist at The Body Mind Center can help. For a free, 15-minute consultation, please call 410-530-9538 or go to our contact page to learn more about our team and what we can do for you.
Please note that due to COVID-19, we are conducting all sessions online for the time being.
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