Experiencing occasional anxiety is a normal part of life. However, people with anxiety disorders frequently have intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations. Often, anxiety disorders involve repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear or terror that reach a peak within minutes (panic attacks). These feelings of anxiety and panic often interfere with you living your life, are difficult to control, are out of proportion to the actual danger and can last a long time.

As anxiety builds, you may start to notice tension and/or psychical symptoms in your body:

• increased heart rate
• difficulty breathing
• sweaty palms
• headache
• nausea
• lack of appetite
• shaking
• cyclical thoughts

People may tell you to “just calm down” or “don’t worry about it,” but that feels near impossible and quite invalidating to your experience. You may also notice that you start to withdraw from certain settings you used to enjoy to reduce any unwanted anxiety triggers or may start to feel like a burden to those around you.

If you are experiencing anxiety, whether big or small, there is likely some underlying cause to what you are feeling. With some work on resourcing to promote a sense of safety and regulation within the body, we can begin to explore and understand your unique experience of anxiety and where it may be stemming from. You are not alone in this feeling and together we can work to validate and resource these unwanted feelings.