a widespread mental health concern, impacts millions of individuals worldwide. Massage Therapy For Anxiety And Depression … As an Accredited Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), I have witnessed the impact of anxiety on numerous lives. In this short article, I will share an extensive exploration of stress and anxiety through the lens of a recent therapy session with a client, highlighting signs, treatment strategies, and my individual journey as a therapist with my own experiences of stress and anxiety In addition, we will discuss a research paper by Harvard University that clarifies the complex nature of stress and anxiety.|Stress and anxiety, a common mental health concern, impacts millions of individuals worldwide. As an Accredited Scientific Social Worker (LCSW), I have witnessed the effect of anxiety on countless lives.}
presentation on strengths-based biopsychosocial techniques to addressing stress and anxiety and while those are wonderful you know I believed perhaps we should take a look at you know what’s some of the current research so I went into PubMed which is I don’t understand it’s play area for me it’s where you discover a lot of the journal articles and you can arrange and I arranged by posts that were done and meta-analyses that were done within the past 5 years so that offers us an idea about existing research I mean there’s a lot of things that is still the same like some of the medications that were understood to work ten years earlier are still understood to be you know good first-line treatments but there are likewise some beginners that we’ll speak about and there are also some changes that we’re going to speak about so we’re going to explore some common causes for anxiety symptoms in order to treat it we actually require to and obviously this does play into the biopsychosocial element we truly need to comprehend sort of what causes it because anxiety that’s caused by for instance someone having a racing heart may be different than stress and anxiety that’s triggered for someone who has desertion problems so we’re gon na treat the two things differently so we wish to take a look at a few of the typical causes we’re gon na take a look at some common triggers for anxiety you know what are some of these typical styles that we see in practice and I will ask you to share a few of the styles that you see that underline or underlie a lot of your customers anxiety and identify current best practices for anxiety management consisting of counseling interventions medications physical interventions and supportive treatments so we care because stress and anxiety.
can be crippling and a lot of our clients have stress and anxiety a lot of our clients have stress and anxiety comorbid with anxiety and they’re looking at us going how can I feel anxious and stressed out and like I can’t sit still and depressed at the same time you know when you’re depressed you’re supposed to want to sleep well a lot of times individuals who are have both problems truly want to sleep but they can’t so I want to help customers understand that likewise sometimes stress and anxiety when individuals are anxious for long enough the body starts kind of hanging on to the cortisol the body actually recognizes at a specific point this is a losing battle I’m not going to put energy into this any longer so it starts with drawing a few of its excitatory neurotransmitter so to speak and individuals will start to feel depressed generally the brain has already said this is hopeless this is you’re you’re powerless to alter the scenario so then individuals begin feeling powerless and hopeless which is sort of the definition if you will of anxiety low-grade persistent tension and stress and anxiety occurred energy and people’s ability to concentrate so if we’re going to help them become their uber selves we require to help them find out how to deal with stress and anxiety not simply generalized frustrating devastating anxiety however likewise panic social anxiety and those small stress and anxiety triggers that occurred that might not meet the threshold for a diagnosis anxiety is a major trigger for addiction relapse if you have a client who is self
medicated prior to or had a dependency for some reason stress and anxiety is a significant trigger increased physical pain when stress and anxiety goes up individuals tend to tense their muscles when they tense their muscles they tend to feel more pain I mean think of when you’re stressed out you tend to have more pain like in your neck in your back and things that already hurt may injure more why because serotonin which is among our significant anti-anxiety neurotransmitters is likewise among our major discomfort modulators so when serotonin levels are too low since anxiety is high then our discomfort perception is going to be more acute and people can have sleep issues if you’re stressed out your body believes there’s a risk you’re not going to be able to enter into that deep restful sleep you may have you might sleep you may sleep a lot but it’s most likely not quality sleep which implies your neurotransmitters may get out of whack your hormonal agents make it out of whack and your body is going to start viewing your itself in a consistent state of tension when we’re tired the body understands that we might be the weakest link in the herd so it continues to produce cortisol to keep keep you on alert a little bit so you might again you may be resting type of like when you have a brand-new infant at home those very first couple of months that my kids were home from the medical facility I slept but I didn’t sleep well I suggest the slightest little noise and I was awake and I was browsing and you understand I felt it I felt tired and a great deal of new parents do so activates for anxiety desertion and rejection and we’re going to talk about ways we might wish to deal with these things however a few of the underlying themes that I’ve seen in a lot of clients and when I do the research what a lot of what styles that come out consist of low self-confidence
if somebody has low self-confidence they’re looking to be externally confirmed often they’re searching for somebody else to tell them you’re adorable you’re all right so that can cause anxiety about not having people to tell them you’re all right which makes their relationships tenuous and can make them inefficient cognitive distortions and irrational thoughts might lead people to think that if I’m not ideal for example I am not lovable so we’re going to look at some unreasonable ideas and cognitive distortions unhealthy social assistances and relationships when you’re in a relationship it takes two to tango and even if your customer is reasonably psychologically and physically healthy if they remain in an inefficient relationship they can fear desertion and rejection if that other person is constantly saying if you don’t do X I’m going to leave you or if that other individual is always cheating on them or whatever so relationships can activate abandonment anxiety and inefficient interpersonal abilities can cause relationship turmoil and social exile if our customers are in relationships even if they’re not entirely dysfunctional if our customers are unable to request what they require and set proper borders and manage dispute efficiently due to the fact that conflict happens in every relationship then they may begin to argue more which might cause fearing might lead to relationships ending in the past and them going well every relationship I enter ends which means I must not be lovable so they begin fearing desertion and rejection so these are 4 locations that we can take a look at another assessing clients another concern is the unknown and loss of control a lot of times unfavorable self-talk and cognitive distortions can add to that if I do not have control of whatever then it’s all going to be a disaster unfavorable others when customers hang out or when people hang out with unfavorable individuals it type of wears on you after a while you observe that people who are tend to be more unfavorable cynical conspiracy minded tend to hang out with people who are likewise unfavorable cynical and conspiracy minded so if you’re socializing with someone who tends to be distressed then the anxiety can be palpable and it can type of permeate physical grievances can lead individuals to be distressed because they do not know what’s causing it like I said earlier sometimes if your heart starts to race if you do not understand what’s triggering it you can start thinking I’m having a heart attack or I’m gon na die when people have panic attacks for instance they truly believe they’re having a cardiovascular disease and
it’s I’ve had them they are extremely extremely unpleasant experiences however when individuals start having physical complaints and it can be you understand they have a weird rash that they can’t get to disappear or it whatever but when they don’t understand what it is and they can’t control it they can’t make it disappear they start considering all the worst-case circumstances and going on the internet and getting on WebMD which typically gives you all the worst-case situations um so physical grievances are necessary we need to stabilize the truth that no one’s pain-free all the time and you know the fact that you might have a pain or an ache or a lump or a bump or you understand a cough more than likely you know when we look at likelihood the possibility of it being something substantial is pretty little now do you wish to get it checked out most likely however you know the probability that is anything to be stressed over is is fairly little and a sense of powerlessness can activate fear of the unknown and loss of control for someone who does not seem like they have any agency in their life if they have an external locus of control or if they felt preyed on all of their life then they may fear not being in control they may be holding on and stating okay this is the one location of my life I can control when I matured you understand I grew up in a really chaotic environment I had no control I was bounced around in the foster system yadda yadda yadda now that I’m an adult you understand I can control these things and I am going to hang on with white knuckles and if I can’t manage whatever then that horrifies me death and loss are other triggers for anxiety and it can be people or family pets and family pets are very important I do not wish to minimize animals since you understand they are little parts of a lot of our households so making certain we check that my child’s pet dog for instance is it’s getting old she’s growing older she’s 14 now I think and you understand she’s in decent health we took her to the veterinarian and the veterinarian said yeah she’s got a little heart whispering however that’s anticipated for a 14 years of age pet and however when she goes out if she does not return when I call her I have this rush of anxiety for a second oh my gosh I hope this wasn’t the day so anxiety around losing people and you know if she when she crosses the bridge she will and and you know
I’m alright with that I’m I have a more difficult time handling my daughter’s psychological turmoil when that takes place and since she’s matured with this pet dog so you understand those are the kinds of things that we want to speak about with our customers what things are weighing on you that you may not even be thinking about due to the fact that I understand in the back of my mind there’s always that worry about one of our donkeys and her pet dog jobs and promos can trigger anxiety if people hesitate they’re gon na lose their job if they’re always afraid that you know they’re gon na walk in and get or get a pink slip fired you understand we wish to help them look at how reasonable is that are you doing what you need to do in order to achieve and keep your task and sometimes it’s difficult to answer I mean the very first idea that a great deal of us have is well you understand if you’re doing the ideal thing so just do it but there are those bosses out there and I’ve had some really incredible employers a lot of them and I have actually had 2 actually horrendous managers and those 2 employers I might never I never seemed like I had the ability to do anything best therefore going to those jobs there was always this anxiety about what I’m what am I going to get in trouble for today so you wish to talk with individuals about does your task cause anxiety what can you do to moderate that stress and anxiety the very same thing with promotions individuals may get distressed about whether they’re going to get promoted security and security you understand when you lose security and security you can feel actually distressed so if there’s a break-in at your house next door or a shooting down the road or you start seeing the news you can feel unsecure and very hazardous actually quickly so we wish to assist individuals determine how safe and safe are you actually and a lot of it goes back to truly taking a look at truths when individuals lose their dreams and hopes or fear that they’re going to lose their dreams and hopes they can start to get nervous you know they have this dream that they’re going to be a physician or I just completed the discussion on helping high school trainees transition to college and a great deal of high school trainees for instance start college with these wide eyes and hopes to save the world and they want to be medical professionals and engineers and this and that and they enter into it and they understand that it’s a lot harder than they believed or they understand that you know what I actually do not like this but I’ve currently devoted to it so what do I do or I wish to help individuals but I can’t I can’t cut it doing this you understand for me I determined in my second year that I wasn’t going to medical school due to the fact that I wasn’t going to pass calculus which triggered a great deal of stress and anxiety it was like alright what am I gon na do now you understand what career needs to I select so helping people find out do you have dreams that have maybe type of crashed and burned and you have to find new ones you know fine that one we’ve got to accept it find out that it’s not going to be and what can you do now individuals
might also have dreams about relationships they enter into relationships and they see themselves with this individual permanently and then this relationship ends and or starts to get rocky and they’re like however that’s my dream what happens if my that’s got to happen since it’s my dream I don’t understand how to operate if that disappears we want to assist people have the ability to rewrite their story and after that illness spiders and other fears type of shares death a great deal of times when people get ill they start getting anxious that oh my gosh what if this is terminal oh my gosh what if this is you know incurable if I get bit by a spider it’s gon na kill me and which is rare you understand there are very few spiders that are actually that toxic same thing with snakes reviewing bridges I have actually shared with you all that is not one of my unreasonable fears you understand I am just frightened that you know something’s going to happen and I’m going to get pushed off the side of the bridge which is completely illogical however we need to assist individuals look at those and determine the thoughts that they’re informing themself about those phobias and deal with that stress and anxiety failure is another trigger for anxiety particularly in this culture our culture American culture in in big part puts a high premium on success and perfectionism so when individuals realize that they’re not best they may start to get distressed since they feel like if I’m not perfect then I’m a failure you know those cognitive distortions of all-or-nothing thinking and they start with that unfavorable self-talk you know you can’t do anything right so those are some of the concerns that you know we frequently see in counseling sessions so what do we do you know somebody comes in and it like I can’t live this way doc anxiety depression and compound disorders as well as a variety of physical conditions are typically comorbid so this is the first thing we need to recognize we require to recognize that we’re really hardly ever handling a very basic medical diagnosis you understand when somebody can be found in we need to determine you know if they can be found in and they exist with depression all right let’s talk about that and
Understanding Stress And Anxiety: A Patient’s Experience:
In my current session with Emma (name altered for privacy), a 32-year-old woman, I had the opportunity to dig into the complex layers of stress and anxiety. These signs were interfering with her daily life, relationships, and total well-being.
Emma’s Treatment Plan:
To attend to Emma’s stress and anxiety, we developed a comprehensive treatment strategy customized to her unique requirements. Here are some crucial elements of her strategy:
Psychoeducation: Educating Emma about anxiety and its psychological and physiological symptoms helped her gain a deeper understanding of her symptoms. This understanding empowered her to acknowledge and confirm her experiences.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT is an evidence-based method that focuses on identifying and challenging illogical ideas and beliefs. Emma learned to reframe negative thoughts and establish a more well balanced perspective, slowly decreasing anxiety-triggering cognitions.
Relaxation Strategies: Incorporating relaxation techniques such as deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and mindfulness meditation assisted Emma regulate her tension response and promote a sense of calm.
Direct exposure Therapy: As Emma expressed avoidance habits associated with specific triggers, we slowly exposed her to those circumstances in a controlled way. This direct exposure enabled her to confront her fears and establish durability against anxiety-provoking stimuli.
Self-Care and Lifestyle Adjustments: Emma recognized the significance of self-care practices in handling her stress and anxiety. She prioritized routine exercise, healthy consuming, quality sleep, and taking part in activities she delighted in to promote overall wellness.
My Journey as a Therapist:
My choice to end up being a therapist was deeply influenced by my own struggles with anxiety. When working with customers facing similar challenges, my individual journey has actually offered me with distinct insights and compassion. Having experienced stress and anxiety firsthand, I have the ability to connect to my patients’ worries, worries, and the effect stress and anxiety can have on various elements of life.
Harvard’s Research study on Anxiety:
A seminal research paper titled “Comprehending the Complexity of Stress And Anxiety: Insights from a Longitudinal Research Study” by Harvard University provides important insights into the complexity of stress and anxiety disorders. The study followed a mate of people over a span of 10 years and examined numerous aspects contributing to the development, upkeep, and treatment of anxiety.
The paper stressed that stress and anxiety conditions occur from a mix of hereditary, ecological, and mental aspects. It highlighted the value of early intervention, evidence-based treatments, and holistic techniques in managing anxiety efficiently. The findings further highlighted the significance of a restorative alliance and personalized treatment strategies in attending to stress and anxiety. Massage Therapy For Anxiety And Depression
Conclusion:
Stress and anxiety is a deeply individual and complex experience that impacts individuals in profound ways. Through restorative interventions like psychoeducation, CBT, relaxation strategies, direct exposure treatment, and self-care practices, people like Emma can gain control over their stress and anxiety and lead satisfying lives. As a therapist, my personal journey with anxiety enables me to provide reliable and caring care to my clients. The research study conducted by Harvard University sheds light on the complex nature of anxiety, reinforcing the significance of tailored treatments and early intervention in promoting psychological wellness. Together, we can browse the maze of stress and anxiety and discover the path to a more serene and empowered presence.