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ANXIETY AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT MANAGING IT VIRTUAL ONE TO ONE ONLINE SESSIONS WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF ANXIETY? Part of Life Transitions from Steven Warren. Anxiety has an effect on both our mind and our body. Physical Effects Short Term Effects: - Increased tension in our body muscles which leads to physical discomfort and sometimes physical pain in our body as well as creating tension headaches; stomach or lower abdominal pain or back pain either in the shoulders or at the base of our spine. - Rapid breathing which can make us feel us both light headed with muscles feeling shaky and also a sensation of pins and needles in our body. - A rise in our blood pressure and increased awareness of our heart pounding. - Changes in the blood supply to the digestive system which may cause both nausea and in some cases sickness. - Having to visit the toilet often and for some people a feeling of butterflies in their stomach. Long Term Effects: - Long term fear with resulting tension and lack of sleep can weaken the immune system resulting in lowering our resistance to infections - Severe digestive problems - Feelings of depression or intense sadness (read more about both depression and feelings of intense sadness by following this link). Psychological Effects Both short and long term anxiety can result in your feeling fearful, overly alert, on edge all the time, irritable and unable to relax or concentrate properly. Naturally you may feel the need to seek out reassurance from other people around you whilst at the same time easily cry and feel out of control and dependent. How you think about and view your world and the world around you. The natural result of long term anxiety leads us to constantly feel that the worst thing imaginable is going to happen with the result that we start to view everything around us from a negative, pessimistic point of view. Sally was waiting for a friend to visit her at home but when the friend was more than twenty minutes late in arriving Sally was convinced that her friend had had an accident or that she didn't really want to see her when in fact the friend was late because the train was delayed. Sally knew she had to function and each evening on returning home from work she started drinking. Soon the amount she would drink each evening in order to be able to get to sleep started to dramatically increase. Whereas for Peter who had taken drugs for recreational party time he found that he began to buy and take drugs when he was seated at home all on his own. Sarah held on to a relationship which had ended and in fact was part of the initial anxiety which had now grown out of control. Her partner was himself now reacting to both the breakdown of the relationship as well as the tension and arguments which were happening every night when he returned home from work. Peter made contact and we began working on rebuilding after a relationship ends and from such work his wife Sarah also worked with me so that they could end their relationship on good terms and she could then move on with no chronic anxiety symptoms. Day to Day Effects If levels of anxiety are very high then this can impact on the ability to hold on to a job or career, both develop and maintain good relationships or simply to take time off and enjoy such time. Sleep problems are a common problem feeding into to the level of thinking and related day to day performance which feeds back into the circle I outline before by increasing feelings of anxiety and tension and your view of yourself to be able to cope with day to day life and living it. How to cope with sleep problems by following this link. For some people their anxiety and related symptoms begin to take over all aspects of their life. They may experience either severe or frequent panic attacks for no apparent reason, or have, as I mentioned earlier, a persistent free floating sense of anxiety. For many people this can result in developing almost a phobic like reaction to going out from their home and for many they begin to withdraw from contact with people even their close friends and family. Other people develop a series of obsessive thoughts or compulsive behaviours such as endlessly washing their hands or tidying a room time and time again. Read more about the different types of anxiety disorders by following this link.
Before I discuss how I work with people let us take a clear look at what anxiety and resulting stress reactions are and how they operate in our day to day life. Anxiety in the form of adrenaline surging around our body making our muscles and senses heightened and aware is a natural normal and healthy reaction. The 'fight or flight response' was designed to protect us by preparing us to flee or fight for our lives thousands of years ago and so it is now but for different reasons. The human brain processes hundreds of small pieces of information per second and much of this is dealt with by our unconscious mind. What may be viewed as important will flash into our conscious mind so that we enter this heightened awareness. At this time hormones such as adrenaline increase which results in our heart beating faster so that blood reaches parts of our body faster to prepare the body. We breath faster to provide extra oxygen to release more energy and we sweat to prevent our body overheating. Often the mouth feels dry as the digestive system slows down to allow more bloody to reach the arm and leg muscles and our senses become heightened as the brain becomes more alert to process all important information about both the situation we face and the environment around us. Once this protection response against perceived danger drops down to a normal level as we see the danger has passed other hormones are released in our body to relax us down but the tense prepared muscles may cause us to shake as the muscles begin to relax. Such tension and heightened awareness my result as we prepare to sit an important exam, prepare for an interview of begin a new job or career. Anticipatory anxiety as we mentally prepare can affect our sleep, our appetite and ability to concentrate. However, once we begin the exam, attend the interview or begin our new job then such natural anxiety will disappear. Severe Anxiety This results when anxiety levels have stayed operating our mind and body for a long period of time which creates a circle which I shall discuss later through anxiety distorting how we see our world. This can result in dealing with every day life given the feelings of anxiety have been around for so long that you feel powerless, out of control and sometimes are left feeling that you are so out of control that you are going mad. Sometimes if these feelings reach a point where you are in state of thinking you are overwhelmed by them then this may result in a panic attack. What is a panic attack? This happens when your body over reacts to your body's normal response to either fear, to stress or to excitement. The normal levels of anticipatory anxiety have over time built up to a level where an extreme reaction results such as pounding heartbeat, feeling faint, excessive sweating, nausea, sometimes chest pains along with discomfort in the normal breathing pattern along with a sense of losing control and often shaking limbs and a feeling that our legs are turning to jelly. Once again in my career working with people with severe anxiety the person often reports thoughts such as they are going mad or that they are going to black out or are having a heart attack. Naturally such powerful threatening thoughts add to the anxiety. Panic attacks often happen very quickly with such symptoms I have outlined above peaking within about ten minutes. Most panic attacks last between 5 to 20 minutes. Some people I have worked with experienced one or two of such panic attacks and then never experienced another whereas some people had such attacks once a month or several times a week with many people reporting how they happened without warning. In some cases such panic attacks happened whilst the person was a sleep. These nighttime attacks happen when your brain is on high alert due to long term anxiety and even though you are sleeping a part of your brain detects tension changes which is seen as danger resulting in suddenly waking in your sleep. Such an attack can be frightening as suddenly waking from a dream state leaves you both confused and exposed. Why are you feeling so anxious? Often this anxiety may relate to either your personality, your current life circumstances, your current or past childhood experiences or, as my clinical experience has shown me a combination of these factors. Your Past Experiences If an event or series of events which created anxiety in your past where you were unable to deal with the associated emotions related to such anxiety it is natural for you to feel anxious in terms of facing similar situations in the future in case they link and create the same feelings of distress. One example for a client, Mary, was how feeling anxious was a powerful part of her early life because her parents always saw and related to the world as a hostile and therefore dangerous place to live in. Naturally, Mary has spent her life thinking and feeling the same as her mother and father. Some theories from psychology suggest that Mary effectively inherited a tendency to be more anxious and that over time this powerful element from her childhood became a part of her personality. As Mary and I worked together and she grew to feel more comfortable and accepting of me and the ideas we were exploring she consciously and then emotionally began to see how her anxiety related to the 'small child' within her and so embraced the fact that she was now a grown adult who had power of her life and the decisions she could make. Physical Everyday Habits From coffee, poor diet, physical and / or mental exhaustion to self medication using alcohol or drugs or having a stress based lifestyle then all of these habits both mimic and trigger symptoms of anxiety. Your Fear of Losing Control in Your Life Many people and this is a growing number in our current society are worrying about the future. In my professional experience when people do not feel in control of important aspects of their life such as money, relationships, career then this anxiety shifts and becomes a form of free floating anxiety naturally leading the person to start worrying about events which are beyond their control such as global warming, of being attacked, developing cancer or having a heart attack or losing their job. Obviously after a while we start to fear the symptoms of anxiety themselves especially because the anxiety leaves us feeling out of control and so this results in a powerful vicious circle. Such a circle starts with feeling anxious because we dread feeling the symptoms of anxiety and the impact it has on our day to day life and ability to function which immediately results in actually experiencing these powerful and unwanted symptoms of anxiety which began by having anxious thoughts. How I work with you audio introduction and discussion with Steven Warren
Virtual online sessions from the comfort of your home. I have flexible hours to help suit your schedule, some evening and weekend appointments available. Get the information and one one one support you need without the high emotional and financial cost of ending a relationship or, if you relationship has ended, then the personal and financial cost of lengthy separation. Whether
you are single or separated or thinking about ending your relationship
and want to learn to have better relationships, I can provide
the tools for rebuilding a life of freedom to decide what you
want in your future life either together with your partner or
as a single person. How We Work Together I
work with you in a number of ways: Here on this page of my website are examples of each the crucial rebuilding steps which are part of rebuilding a relationship when it is ending or, if the relationship has ended, then rebuilding our future life as a single person. You can both read the excerpts below and listen to a sample of the full audio recordings to give you an overview of how we work in a more detailed way. Once we begin working together you are sent intensive and detailed written and audio materials to prepare for our sessions together as we work through each stage.
After our initial discussion session we will discover where you currently are in regard to the rebuilding process. Before we schedule this all important session I shall send you a questionnaire to complete which will guide you through the various stages so that we are clear where you currently are on the rebuilding journey.
Now, below on the remainder of this page of my website you review the various stages of rebuilding either by reading the short overview or, if you prefer, you can listen to the summary of the audio versions I provide for each stage which provide the foundation for our virtual online sessions.
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To learn more about how I can work with you please make initial email contact steven@stevenwarren.co.uk
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