3 Ways to Deal with Anxiety and Stress – Anxiety Services in Newcastle
Anxiety and stress can be distressing and debilitating. What’s more, once you begin suffering from either of these problems, it can be difficult to break the negative cycles that cause distress and return to leading a normal life.
Newcastle Psychologist & Counselling’s Anxiety Services in Newcastle can help you overcome stress and anxiety and stop them impacting on your life. The team’s highly skilled selection of psychologists and counsellors are trained in a variety of talking therapies, which aim to help you deal with stressful situations more easily.
How Does Anxiety Counselling Work?
During a counselling or therapy session you will be able to share your thoughts, feelings and problems with your therapist in a confidential and non-judgmental setting. Not knowing you personally means that they are able to be more objective and help you reflect on your situation in a way that does not leave the room and will have your best interests at heart.
Your therapist will also be able to help formulate and support you to learn techniques and skills, tailored to you and your situation, to help you manage your anxiety and overcome your problems. The counsellor may also be able to offer immediate relief from anxiety using specialist stress-management techniques such as through guided relaxation, grounding or other proven methods.
Below are some ways that you can help yourself manage your stress and anxiety:
- Identify Your Anxiety Triggers
The best way to relive stress is to help you manage the triggers that make you feel anxious. Sometimes it can be difficult to identify anxiety triggers by yourself, and your counsellor or psychologist might encourage you to keep diaries to help you do this.
If you’re to be able to prevent anxiety and stress in the future, it is helpful to understand your own personal triggers and reasons these trigger your distress. Everyone’s triggers are different and it is helpful to look at your own situation for clues as to what leads to you feeling stressed or anxious.
- Learn Anxiety Management Techniques
Once exposed to a trigger, you might notice symptoms of anxiety which can then spiral out of control. This is where your counsellor or psychologist might be able to teach you specific techniques to prevent this spiral, and give you back control over the situation and the way you feel.
We can’t always help being exposed to our triggers in day-to day life, and in some situations it can be unhelpful to start avoid them (especially if it impacts on living a happy life). It is therefore important to have strategies in place for when they arise.
Having already identified what the triggers are, and having worked with a counsellor or therapist to help you manage symptoms, you will be better prepared to deal with them in the moment.
- Learn to Reduce Your Body’s Stress Response
The onset of anxiety involves chemical changes in the body (often called the “physical stress response”) which then lead to the catastrophic thoughts, distressing feelings and physical sensations that we experience when anxious or panicking.
Although normal, and in some situations even helpful, constant presence of these hormones (even in small amounts) can cause a lowered immune system, with prolonged stress and anxiety being linked to a variety of physical health problems (such as heart attack and stroke) if left unchecked.
Consequently, in addition to learning to manage your anxiety triggers, you can also adapt your lifestyle to reduce the stress you experience and learn to manage your body’s physical response. Techniques such as limiting your a workload, sleeping longer (and better) or taking part in active relaxation or meditation can be helpful in managing your body’s stress response.
Your Anxiety Counsellor will be able to offer useful advice on techniques used to reduce stress and manage anxiety in the long-term.
For Further Information
Stress and anxiety can cause a variety of problems in day to day life and impact wellbeing. If you feel you are suffering from either of these problems, contact Newcastle Psychologist & Counselling using the box below and ask about our Anxiety Services in Newcastle to help you to reduce feelings of overwhelm, anxiety and stress.
Best wishes,
Dr Stuart Sadler
Lead Clinical Psychologist
