Anxiety is something most of us experience. It is part of being human and, in the right circumstances, it can be useful. It can alert us to danger, help us prepare for something important and encourage us to pay attention.
But anxiety can also become exhausting.
You might find yourself constantly thinking ahead, imagining what could go wrong, replaying conversations or questioning decisions you’ve already made. Perhaps your mind seems determined to solve problems that haven’t actually happened yet.
Sometimes anxiety is obvious. Your heart races, your breathing changes, your stomach turns or you feel panicky and unable to settle.
At other times, it can be much quieter.
It might look like checking things repeatedly, avoiding situations, needing reassurance, struggling to make decisions, lying awake thinking, trying to keep everybody happy or feeling that you always need to be prepared for the next problem.
And sometimes you may not even describe yourself as anxious. You might simply say, “I can’t switch my brain off.”
When Overthinking Takes Over
Overthinking often feels as though we’re trying to solve something.
If I think about this for long enough, perhaps I’ll understand it.
If I replay that conversation again, perhaps I’ll work out what they really meant.
If I consider every possible outcome, perhaps nothing will catch me by surprise.
The difficulty is that our minds don’t always distinguish very well between thinking about a problem and actually solving one.
We can end up going around the same thoughts repeatedly without getting any closer to an answer.
Anxiety can also change the way we interpret things. A delayed message can become “I’ve upset them.” A mistake at work can become “I’m terrible at my job.” An uncertain future can quickly become the worst possible future.
The feeling is real.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the story anxiety is telling us is accurate.
Anxiety Can Affect More Than Your Thoughts
Anxiety isn’t simply something happening in your head.
You might notice tension, headaches, difficulty sleeping, changes in appetite, a racing heart, stomach problems, restlessness or feeling permanently on edge.
It can affect relationships, confidence, work and the choices we make.
Sometimes we begin avoiding situations that make us anxious. That can bring immediate relief, but it can also make the situation feel even harder the next time we encounter it.
Our lives can gradually become smaller without us necessarily noticing it happening.
How Therapy With Gail Can Help
Therapy gives us somewhere to slow this process down and become curious about what is happening rather than simply being carried along by it.
My Person-Centred foundation means that we begin with your experience of anxiety, rather than assuming that everybody experiences it in the same way.
Alongside this, my degree-level training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) means we can explore the relationship between your thoughts, feelings and behaviours and identify patterns that may be keeping anxiety going.
We might notice catastrophising, avoidance, reassurance-seeking, assumptions about what other people are thinking, or the tendency to treat a possibility as though it is a certainty.
The aim isn’t to tell you to “stop worrying” or force yourself to think positively.
If it were that simple, you probably would have done it already.
Instead, we can explore what your anxiety is responding to, what keeps it going and whether there are different ways of understanding or responding to the situations you face.
Sometimes practical CBT strategies are useful. Sometimes we need to understand where particular fears or beliefs came from. Sometimes what you need most is somewhere you can finally say what has been going around in your head without somebody immediately trying to fix it.
Often it is a mixture of all three.
You Don’t Have to Wait Until Anxiety Takes Over
You don’t need to reach crisis point before therapy becomes appropriate.
Perhaps anxiety is interfering with your sleep. Perhaps overthinking is affecting your relationships or confidence. Perhaps you’re avoiding more things than you used to, or you’re simply exhausted from having a brain that seems to be permanently three steps ahead of you.
Whatever anxiety looks like for you, we can start with what is happening now.
Therapy With Gail can help you understand your anxiety, recognise the patterns that may be keeping it going and explore ways of responding that give anxiety a little less control over how you live your life.