Are you struggling with anxiety and wondering how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) may be helpful? CBT is an evidenced based therapeutic approach that encompasses many interventions and strategies to help target your behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. The way you THINK (cognitive) about something impacts the way you FEEL about something, and both impact how you ACT (behavioral). When treating anxiety, CBT can be a helpful approach to addressing, reducing, and learning to manage symptoms long-term.
If you have anxiety, you may be familiar with common symptoms such as:
- Uncontrollable worry
- Difficulty managing thoughts when anxious
- Feeling easily annoyed/irritable
- Feeling nervous, anxious, and/or on edge
- Experiencing intrusive unwanted thoughts
- Difficulty coping
- Panic or anxiety attacks
- Trouble relaxing
- Overthinking
- Difficulty focusing on other things and/or concentrating
- Avoiding activities, places, or things that trigger you to feel anxious
- Ruminating on things
Anxiety can manifest in many ways and be caused by general life stressors or specific events or traumatic experiences. Once anxiety symptoms increase, they can start to interfere with life as you know it and make day to day tasks feel challenging or even unmanageable. It can impact self-confidence, relationships, work/careers, parenting, motivation, and social events to name a few. Anxiety can also become so overwhelming that small things that you have previously done or enjoyed doing can begin to feel impossible.
For those struggling with anxiety, therapy can be a wonderful place to turn for support. Anxiety is very common and also treatable. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has specifically been shown to help individuals improve functioning and reduce symptoms of anxiety long-term. This treatment approach helps individuals manage anxiety in a number of ways, including:
- Teaching you to understand and identify triggers
- Learning healthy coping strategies and anxiety reduction techniques
- Increasing self-awareness into the connection between your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors
- Learning to reduce unwanted/unhealthy behaviors
- Identifying unhealthy or unhelpful thought processes, self-limiting beliefs, and cognitive distortions
- Learning skills to challenge unwanted thoughts and create new beliefs
- Addressing lifestyle factors, relationships, and triggers of your anxiety symptoms
- Learning how to incorporate mindfulness practices into your routine
- Addressing communication challenges and people pleasing behaviors occurring because of symptoms
- Learning to feel more confident in yourself
- Supporting you in your efforts to manage anxiety without medication
Therapy is not a “one size fits all” approach to addressing anxiety and therefore, it’s important to work with a licensed therapist who can help address specific symptoms and concerns you are having. If you are still curious about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and want to learn more about how it can specifically help you manage your anxiety, today is a perfect time to call to learn more. Anxiety can feel unmanageable, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Give me a call to learn how we can work together to help you address and reduce your symptoms so that YOU are managing the anxiety, not the other way around
