Highly-Effective Anxiety Therapy in Calgary
Impacts of Anxiety
While everyone experiences some kind of anxiety in their lives, if you are living with it day-in and day-out, it’s negatively affecting your life. You may need anxiety therapy if it’s impacting your
sleep
concentration
mood
digestion
energy
physical tension
emotional reactivity
relationships
work performance
Having anxiety interfere with your everyday functioning can severely impact your health and your relationships. But you don’t have to navigate this on your own. I can help.
Using evidence-based psychological treatments catered to your individual needs, I’ll help you develop lasting tools to manage your anxiety, achieve perspective, and regain control of your life.
“You are afraid of surrender because you don't want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert
Get help with anxiety counselling in Alberta
Your thoughts are restless and nonstop. Everything feels very overwhelming and tense. You can’t shut your brain off when you want to, and that chronic worry keeps you up at night. Your high need for achievement is translating into impossible standards. At times, your heart races, your breathing gets shallow, and you feel really scared. Other times, you're unable to stop checking things, procrastinating, searching online for answers, or having others reassure you in order to feel better. Worst of all, you avoid meaningful things out of fear. Your entire life is starting to revolve around anxiety.
You’ve come to the right place to stop the struggle.
Find your freedom again
Anxiety Treatment in Calgary
Having anxiety is part of the human experience and can be quite useful for identifying danger in life. However, at times it becomes totally consuming, overwhelming, or even debilitating. Some people struggle with anxiety their entire lives while others have “bouts” of it during periods of heightened stress or difficult situations. Many people have symptoms of one or more different anxiety conditions. In fact, anxiety is the most common psychiatric concern and approximately 25% of the population struggle with it during their lifetime. The good news is that it’s highly treatable with therapy and you can get lasting relief by learning psychological strategies to combat anxiety.
Most people have figured out some tricks to not feel so bad. In other words, there might be things, people, or situations that you’re avoiding in order to keep your anxiety or negative emotions at bay. For instance, you may binge Netflix, drink alcohol, clean excessively, or stay really busy. These actions can be used to shut down uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Though those escape and distraction strategies do work for a short time, the discomfort returns a short while later. Another side effect of avoidance is that it’s not who you want to be or stand for in your life.
I can help you stop surrendering to fear and help you find relief and regain control. Start living the life you deserve.
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GAD is excess and persistent worrying about a number of different areas of your life, such as finances, relationships, work, family, future, health etc. You may feel a constant sense of dread, have muscle tension, fatigue, difficulty concentrating or sleeping, digestive troubles, and other physical symptoms associated with anxiety. Your brain just won’t shut off and it may feel impossible to handle situations where you don’t know the outcome and you tend to imagine the worst-case scenario.
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Panic attacks are a sudden, short-lived, intense rush of fear that have a variety of physical symptoms like chest tightness, hyperventilating, shakiness, or shaking. You may feel like you’re going crazy, dying, or losing control. There may or may not be a specific reason to have these attacks.
Treatment for panic attacks involves a specific type of exposure therapy in CBT, called interoceptive exposure. Interoceptive exposure is a systematic method of facing your physical symptoms repeatedly in increasing doses until you become desensitized to them.
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Social anxiety is characterized by fear of being negatively judged or rejected by others in a social or performance situation. Therefore, it’s common that people with social anxiety avoid situations that would cause distress, or if they can’t avoid the situation, then they experience significant anxiety and discomfort.
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You may be a perfectionist if your high standards for yourself or others are impossible to meet, leading to chronic feelings of failing or not being good enough. You may believe that there is only one way to do things and rules must be followed. Delegating tasks may be unheard of as you believe that others can’t perform the way you do. You may be chronically procrastinating or avoiding what needs to get done. It’s also common to be critical of yourself and others, depressed or put all your worth in your ability to achieve.
Treatment for perfectionism doesn’t involve lowering your standards. Rather, it’s about helping you develop more flexible thinking, realistic goals for yourself, and learning to make mistakes with greater self-compassion.
*Health psychology
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Also known as illness anxiety disorder, this occurs when someone is preoccupied with the belief that they have, or could contract, a serious illness. This is coupled with a strong need for reassurance. Often excess medical investigations and appointments occur, whereas other times the person avoids medical professionals altogether.
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Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a condition where people experience both unwanted intrusive or obsessive thoughts/urges and compulsive behaviors done to relieve the distress of the obsessional thoughts.
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Phobias are having an overwhelming fear of things or situations like fear of heights, spiders, flying, needles, vomiting, etc.
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Agoraphobia is when someone fears and avoids certain places or situations that might cause them to feel trapped, embarrassed, or helpless.