Understanding Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences at times. It’s part of our body’s in-built alarm system, designed to keep us safe by alerting us to potential danger. This alarm is controlled by the amygdala, a small but powerful organ in the brain that processes threat and triggers the body’s stress response.

Feeling anxious before an exam, a change in life, or job interview is perfectly natural. In small doses, anxiety can be helpful by motivating us to prepare, focus, or act. However, anxiety becomes a problem when it is ongoing, intense, out of proportion to the situation, or interferes with living life the way you want. When the brain’s alarm system becomes overly sensitive, it can signal “danger” in everyday safe situations. This is when anxiety may develop into a disorder.

What Anxiety feels like

Anxiety is more than just feeling nervous. It can show up emotionally, physically, and in the way we think or behave. Symptoms vary from person to person but can include:

  • Constant worrying, dread, or intrusive thoughts
  • Feeling tense, restless, or unable to relax
  • Difficulty concentrating or sleeping
  • A racing heartbeat or palpitations
  • Feeling lightheaded, dizzy, or nauseous
  • Tightness in the chest or throat
  • Shaking, sweating, or hot flushes
  • Headaches, changes in appetite, or digestive issues
  • Panic attacks
  • Seeking constant reassurance but struggling to feel reassured
  • Using coping strategies such as avoidance, comfort eating, alcohol, smoking, shopping, or drug use

Living with Anxiety

Living with anxiety can be exhausting and isolating. Many people try to cope by avoiding the things that make them anxious. While this can bring short-term relief, it often makes anxiety worse in the long run. Over time, avoidance reduces your ability to tolerate anxious feelings and may limit your activities, relationships and sense of freedom.

Without effective strategies, prolonged anxiety can also affect both mind and body, leading to:

  • Sleep problems
  • Low mood or depression
  • High blood pressure
  • Memory and concentration difficulties
  • Loneliness and withdrawal from others

Why Anxiety develops

Anxiety can arise for a variety of reasons. It may be triggered by past or current experiences that felt threatening, prolonged periods of stress, difficulties in relationships, or significant life changes and transitions. Some people may also be naturally more sensitive to perceived threats, meaning their brain’s alarm system reacts more strongly to difficult situations that others might find more manageable. Biological or hormonal factors can also contribute and for some people, anxiety can appear without an obvious cause.

Experiencing anxiety is not a sign of weakness. It is a natural response of the brain and body designed to protect you. When anxiety becomes overwhelming or persistent, support and treatment can help you understand it, regain control, and learn to manage it effectively.

Getting Support for Anxiety

Although anxiety can feel overwhelming, effective treatments are available. Therapies have been shown to help people understand and manage their anxiety, reduce symptoms and regain confidence. In therapy, I can help you:

  • Understand what anxiety is and how it affects your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
  • Explore where your anxiety comes from and develop a psychological formulation which is a personalised explanation of how your thoughts, feelings, past experiences, and behaviours interact to maintain anxiety. This helps make sense of your experiences and guides the strategies we use in therapy.
  • Identify unhelpful beliefs and thought patterns that fuel your anxiety.
  • Recognise your triggers and learn how to respond to them in a productive way.
  • Develop strategies to reduce overall anxiety and improve daily functioning.
  • Address underlying issues, such as past trauma, that may be contributing to your anxiety.
  • Create a personalised plan to support long-term recovery and prevent relapse.

Small steps that can help

While professional support is often important, small changes in daily life can also make a difference:

  • Identify how you currently cope with anxiety - notice which strategies are helpful and which might be making things worse.
  • Explore different ways of managing anxiety - for example, relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, mindfulness or grounding strategies.
  • Breaking overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable steps.
  • Improving sleep quality and maintaining a consistent routine.
  • Making lists or journaling to organise your thoughts.
  • Gradually facing situations you might normally avoid.

How I might be able to help

It’s easy to describe the symptoms of anxiety, but much harder to capture what it feels like to live with it day-to-day. If you are struggling, know that you are not alone and anxiety does not have to define your life. With the right support, it is possible to reduce symptoms, rebuild confidence and live more freely.

In therapy, I can offer approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) (link to CBT page), EMDR therapy (link to EMDR page), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) (link to DBT page) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) (link to ACT page) to help manage anxiety. I also combine different evidence-based therapies to create a personalised approach tailored to your goals and needs.