Anxiety Links

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What is anxiety and what causes it?

Anxiety arises when our body senses threat or danger. We have an alarm system in our brain that is very efficient called the amygdala and this alerts us very quickly to dangers around us. This triggers our sympathetic nervous system, flooding our body with hormones such as adrenaline, getting our nervous system ready to stay and fight or run.

As children, going through stressful situations, we learn how to regulate and calm ourselves down through our family and environment. If we are unable to do this then we find it difficult to understand what is safe. Becoming highly sensitive to all the dangers around us we can feel nervous and anxious in normal situations. Encountering a difficult or traumatic situation as adults such as an accident or a bereavement can also cause to be more sensitive and see the world as a more dangerous and stressful place.

How can therapy help?

Therapy can help us be curious your feelings and investigate these alerts, or triggers and understand why we feel unsafe and discover the underlying issues for our anxiety.

Therapy can also offer an empathic non-judgemental space for you to explore your feelings. Revisiting your issues in a controlled, gentle process allows you to notice them and see them objectively without being overwhelmed by them.

Psychodynamic and narrative therapy can help us understand the causes of our anxiety by bringing unconscious thoughts or feelings into conscious awareness and investigating any internal conflicts in the past.

We can use mindfulness, visualisation, guided imagery, grounding and breathing techniques to help you regulate yourself. The more you know about what triggers you, the greater control you will have over your feelings.

Exposure therapy can help with OCD and phobias such as agoraphobia. CBT, DBT and ACT can also help address the negative thoughts underlying the anxiety and use skills to find a new way of approaching your issues.