Anxiety Counselling in Newton Abbot Help with the effects of anxiety
Where feeling anxious makes the world feel small, therapy can help you feel safe enough to open back up again.
Are you living with anxiety? You might feel like you’re carrying around an extra weight everywhere you go. Like your stomach is full of nerves. Like your mind never quite switches off. Like you have to face the whole world with fists permanently curled, waiting for something to go wrong.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And you don’t have to keep shouldering it alone, either.
I offer anxiety counselling in Newton Abbot and online, where you can unwind in a relaxed, confidential setting and start making sense of what’s going on.
Together, we’ll explore how anxiety affects you, and how you can start responding to anxious feelings with gentleness instead of a battle.
What are the 5 signs of anxiety?
Anxiety affects everyone differently. Some common signs that you are experiencing anxiety are:
Physical Sensations: One of the first places anxiety can show up is in your body. It might be a lump in your throat, a heaviness in your chest, a knot in your stomach. How your body responds will be unique to you – it might be that some sensations or symptoms feel so familiar that you’ve stopped really noticing them. It’s important to check out any physical symptoms that might be linked to a physical health condition first.
Thoughts: you might find you’re constantly worrying about things that have happened or might happen in the future. You expect the worst. You doubt yourself. It feels like your thoughts are racing, out of control.
Mood and Feelings: You might feel restless, unable to settle. You might find that you’ll quickly become irritated and snappy, frustrated. You might have troubling relaxing or concentrating on things you used to enjoy.
Sleep: it might be hard for you to fall asleep, or you’re sleep is restless and broken. When you wake, you still feel tired and not refreshed.
Behaviour: you may avoid doing new activities or tasks that feel too risky. You could be over-working, or being hypervigilant, double checking everything. You could find you’re spending a lot of time on ‘distractions’ – screentime, shopping, eating for example. Perhaps you avoid any people or situations that make you feel anxious.
These experiences are not weakness, and they’re not something you should just learn to ‘deal with’. They’re signs that your mind and body are strained — and that support could help.
I offer a free, no pressure chat to talk about what’s going on for you and how I might help. There’s no obligation to book anything or make any spot decisions – it’s just a chance to ask questions and see if I’m someone you could might want to work with.
If you’d rather send a quick question or message, you can contact me on Whatsapp. I’ll usually respond within 24-48hrs.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is your body’s natural response to perceived danger or threat. When we sense threat, our nervous system coordinates a physical response – we become alert and focused, our muscles tighten, and our heart starts pumping faster. In short bursts, anxiety is necessary and useful. But when it comes out of proportion to the situation (or when there’s actually no clear trigger at all), anxiety can take over.
Generalised anxiety, panic disorder, social anxiety, OCD, and PTSD are all types of anxiety — but like depression, no two people’s relationship with anxiety will look exactly the same.
You might experience sudden anxiety that comes out of nowhere; you might experience persistent worries about specific things, other people’s opinions of you, or worst-case scenarios.
Or you might feel low energy and dread as your anxiety levels rise, alongside physical symptoms like headaches, difficulty breathing or feeling sick.
Whatever it looks like, anxiety isn’t fun. But it is treatable, and it doesn’t have to control how you feel day to day.
‘Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind.
If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.’
Arthur Somers Roche
How Common is Anxiety?
According to mental health charity Mind, anxiety is one of the most common experiences in the UK. ‘Millions of adults in the UK will experience anxiety at some point in their lives’. Many people who struggle with anxiety become very good at masking it, appearing as confident and calm to the outside world.
Anxiety can be the root cause of a range of ways of behaving thinking, such as being a perfectionist. To read more about the links between anxiety and perfectionism, visit my blog page here.
What Causes Anxiety?
Anxiety is almost never caused by one single thing. For most people, anxiety starts as a response to stress or difficult life events and builds over time.
There are lots of factors that can cause or contribute to anxiety, including:
• Life stresses and events. Big life changes, relationship issues, grief, money troubles, and demanding jobs can all cause anxiety (or make existing anxiety worse).
• Your experiences. Traumatic events and difficult childhood experiences can cause you to perceive the world (and your place in it) as more dangerous than it is.
• Your thought processes. Mental habits like ‘catastrophising’ (always assuming the worst will happen), all-or-nothing thinking, or a self-critical inner voice can reinforce anxious thoughts and feelings.
• Neurodiversity. Neurodivergent people living with ADHD, autism, or other conditions are much more likely to live with anxiety. Anxiety is now recognised as a common symptom of autism.
• Medication or physical illness. Anxiety can sometimes be triggered by certain medications or medical issues.
• Genetics. Like with many mental and physical health issues, anxiety can run in families. Some people’s fight-or-flight instincts are more easily triggered than others.
• Uncertainty. Ongoing stress or uncertainty about things like your health, money, a relationship, or the future can cause you to become more anxious over time.
Help with anxiety at Candlewood Counselling
How Can Counselling Help With Anxiety?
In counselling, you can slow down, be listened to and start to make sense of what’s been going on. There’s no need to have answers or to ‘snap out of it’.
The counselling relationship – a regular, safe space to explore without judgement – is itself healing.
My approach is integrative: drawing on different evidence-based schools of therapy depending on what will most help you. Some of the approaches I use which can be particularly helpful for anxiety include:
• working at your pace in a space that is non-directive and deeply empathic.
• helping you to notice and question anxious thought patterns, and develop alternative responses.
• helping you to change your relationship to anxious thoughts and feelings, rather than trying to battle with them.
• developing a kinder relationship with yourself, particularly useful if you find yourself feeling self-critical or ashamed.
• learning how anxiety shows up in the body and how to help your nervous system feel safe.
Together we may work on:
• Understanding your anxiety and breaking the cycle of anxious thoughts and behaviours.
• Practical skills for managing anxiety, including how to cope with anxious thoughts and physical anxiety symptoms.
• Facing fears and working with avoidance – gradually and at a pace you can handle.
• Self-compassion: stopping the inner critic and developing a kinder relationship with yourself.
• Building confidence in your ability to cope with uncertainty and trust yourself again.
• Connecting with stillness; learning to feel calmer and more grounded in your everyday life.
The aim isn’t to become completely anxiety-free. Anxiety is a normal part of life. But through counselling, we can reduce its impact on your life, so that anxiety has less power to control how you feel and behave.
Taking The Next Step..
Deciding to reach out for help is a huge step. And you don’t have to have all the answers.
If you’ve got mostly anxiety, or anxiety coupled with depression, know that I’m here to help. If anxiety is something you’d like help with, that’s enough.
You don’t need a formal diagnosis – just to know that anxiety is something you want to work on.
Click below to request a free 15-minute chat to see if we’re a good fit – with no commitment required.