The most common mental health illness in Australia is anxiety with approximately 3.3 million people suffering from it (https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/mental-health/national-study-mental-health-and-wellbeing/latest-release). While at first this number may seem shocking, it is also encouraging to know that you are far from alone.
Anxiety is a common and natural response to stress, but when it becomes overwhelming and persistent, it can significantly impact our daily lives. The good news is that there are effective strategies to manage anxiety, and counselling has proven to be a valuable tool in that regard. In this blog post, we'll explore the role of counselling in managing anxiety symptoms and delve into understanding some of the more common triggers.
How Can Counselling Help with Anxiety?
Counselling for anxiety often takes the form of talk therapy, giving you the opportunity to sit and talk about how anxiety affects your life. It’s important to feel at ease with your counsellor as this allows more room for you to open up about how you are truly feeling. Counselling can help you explore your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours and how they might be helping or hindering your anxiety. Therapy can help you understand some of the root causes that might be driving your anxious feelings and help you develophealthier coping strategies.
One of the great things about seeing a counsellor is they can help you identify some of the negative thought patterns that might be driving your anxiety. Often referred to as your “Inner Critic”, these negative thought patterns can be self-sabotaging and quite destructive. And you know what? Anxiety just loves the sound of the Inner Critic’s voice! Instead of the Inner Critic helping youbecome a better person, it actually works against you, causing you to doubt your ability to successfully live a happy life.
Counselling also provides you the opportunity to recognise where anxiety is eroding your self-esteem and confidence. A counsellor can work with you to identify and challenge those negative self-talk patterns and perceptions of yourself which your anxiety is thriving on. In therapy, you can foster a more positive relationship with yourself, improving your self-esteem and confidence, and learning strategies to improve your quality of life. All of which help lower your anxiety levels.
Understanding Your Triggers
Life can throw a lot of curve balls, and if you aren’t expecting them, they can cause anxiety. Anxiety can also be caused by sharing too much of yourself with others, leading you to feel like you are being taken advantage of. Counselling can help you learn how to develop healthy boundaries to help you become more assertive and feel more in control of your life.
Stressful life events, trauma, environmental factors, biological factors, and unhealthy coping mechanisms can all feed into anxiety. Therapy is an amazing tool to help you change what you can and learn how to manage things you can’t- all of which helps lower your anxiety. By understanding the root causes and triggers of anxiety, you can work with your counsellor to develop strategies for long-term relief for this somehwat debiliating disorder.
Anxiety doesn’t have to be a life sentence
EMJ Counselling works with many people at all different stages of their journey tolearn how to lower their anxiety. Take the first step towards a life with less anxiety by reaching out today to schedule an appointment, and let’sstart your journey toward a more balanced and peaceful existence.