Anxiety Therapy – When Life Just Feels Like It’s Too Much!

Do you often feel overwhelmed?

Is your “To Do” list, either at work or at home or both, growing out of control?

Are family members putting demands on you that feel like pressure?

Are chronic health issues interfering with your enjoyment of life?

Do you have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, ultimately resulting in feeling sleep-deprived?

Are you finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on whatever you’re doing?

Do you ever feel like shouting, “Stop the world!  I want to get off!”

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you’re not alone.  Most of us experience one or more of those conditions at multiple times throughout our lifetime.  If addressed quickly, they can help guide us to get back on a healthier track—similar to a red light that comes on inside our car to let us know that we need to look under the hood.

However, if they go unnoticed or ignored for a long enough period of time, they can become highly problematic, involving our mental and emotional well-being, our physical health, and our relationships.

Here are some steps you can take to feel more in control of the anxious moments in your life:

• Be conscious and aware of your feelings.  Stay in touch with what is causing them, and prepare to deal with them head-on if they continue to worsen.
• If you notice a repetitive pattern that brings you increasing degrees of worry, acknowledge this pattern, and give yourself some time to really look at it, figure out what, if anything, needs to be done, and do it.
• Give up the need to be in control, and recognize that some things in life are uncertain.  Accept that no matter how hard you try, some people and circumstances will still feel unsafe or uncomfortable, and that’s okay.  Despite the possibility of something bad happening, life can still be great, and relationships can be really wonderful and fulfilling.
• Challenge your negative thoughts.  If you habitually engage in all-or-nothing thinking; over-generalization; only seeing the negative aspects of a given situation; jumping to conclusions; specializing in worst-case scenarios; your feelings dictate your reality; or you take responsibility for things you can’t control, make a concerted effort to stop these habits now.  Positive thinking is a powerful way to change your life for the better, and especially to help make anxiety a thing of the past.
• Practice mood relaxation techniques.  Deep breathing and meditation exercises can dramatically change your anxious patterns of thinking, and they can help you to replace your anxious thoughts with patterns of thinking that will cause you to feel relaxed.

Take the first step…

If you are ready to gain control over your life that is feeling like too much and overwhelming you with anxiety and worry, I would like to help.  Please contact me by phone or email so we can discuss how we might work together to identify and achieve your therapeutic goals as quickly and effectively as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Linda K. Laffey, MFT