Everybody occasionally experiences worry, uneasiness, and fear, so it’s normal if you sometimes feel this way. However, if the length or intensity of your anxiety interferes with your work or relationships, it’s time to do something about it. Anxiety can take over your feelings, thoughts, and ability to go about your everyday life. It can also present itself through actual physical symptoms.

Nearly 40 million U.S. adults suffer from anxiety disorders every year. Counseling can help you develop practical tools for managing anxiety and break free from its control over your life.

There Are Ways to Deal with Anxiety

We know that many people face obstacles when seeking mental health treatment, from limited access to care and a shortage of available therapists to worries about insurance coverage and the high costs associated with mental health services.

However, with health insurance plans from companies like Cigna or Aetna, you can get personalized mental health assistance that is convenient and low cost. We offer anxiety therapy online throughout California or in person in San Jose, CA when you need it.

Counseling for Anxiety

In the safe and therapeutic space one on one with a caring therapist, you can expect to address dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs contributing to stress and develop strategies to replace negative thought patterns with more positive ones. Therapy helps to build resilience and self-awareness, to help you face life’s challenges in more effective ways. Our therapists use CBT, DBT, Mindfulness, Somatic, and more to help you feel better.

At Therapy for Every Body,  we have immediate openings for online or virtual counseling sessions throughout California to help you deal with anxiety and other mental health concerns. We also know that finding affordable mental health care may be an obstacle to seeking treatment. You may, for example, struggle to find a mental health care provider who accepts insurance.

But we believe that nothing should get in the way of your health and well-being. We partner with Cigna and Aetna Insurance, offering sliding-scale counseling (a sort of counseling service that charges different rates depending on the client’s ability to pay for therapy) to ensure our clients have timely access to mental health treatment. We believe therapy should be affordable and convenient.

Aside from counseling, there are self-care practices that you may adopt in your daily life to help you cope with anxiety.

Self-Care Tools for Managing Anxiety

Although it might mean different things to different people, regular self-care routines involve taking care of ourselves in a way that supports our mental, emotional, and physical health and well-being.

So, here are some self-care tools for anxiety management that you can develop and practice daily.

Practice Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is highly effective in managing anxiety. Mindfulness involves the ability to be present in the moment without reactivity and self-judgment. This way, mindfulness can increase awareness of your negative thoughts and help you manage them better.

The amygdala, a part of the limbic system that initiates the “fight or flight” responses in situations of stress, is where our anxiety reaction begins. As a result, we experience emotional, cognitive, and physical symptoms of anxiety. Mindfulness training can lower background stress and anxiety by influencing and decreasing amygdala activity.

Mindfulness meditation can also improve focus and attention, help identify and understand your emotions, and make you feel more relaxed and optimistic.

Engage in Journaling

Journaling can be a great way to express and understand your thoughts and emotions better. Writing down your thoughts and feelings might help you recognize your triggers, anxiety symptoms, and behavioral patterns, allowing you to develop strategies to regulate them better.

Research shows that expressing your feelings in writing can even boost your immune system.

Expressing your painful emotions like fear, shame, sadness, or anger can help release their intensity, allowing you to work through them.

Engage in Regular Exercise

Studies have shown that physical activity can help remove your mind from negative thoughts and feelings, making you feel less anxious. Regular exercise can also improve your mood, raise your optimism, and make you feel relaxed. Exercise releases endorphins, the brain chemicals known as “happy hormones,” resulting in a sense of calmness and composure.

Connect with Nature

Research shows that spending time in nature can benefit our mental health and well-being. Strolling in nature can help clear your mind and distract you from negative thoughts. Spending time in nature, whether it’s a day at the beach, an afternoon in a city park, or a hike through the wilderness, may reduce stress and make you feel more relaxed and optimistic, lowering your anxiety.

Engage in Creative Activities

Creative arts and crafts activities encourage emotional expression, helping you work through difficult emotions and reduce tension. Also, creative activities such as music, painting, poetry, or dance can increase your happiness, cognitive abilities, and mental health.

Practice Gratitude

Keeping a gratitude journal can help you identify and eliminate negative or self-critical thoughts and fill your subconscious mind with thoughts of happiness, abundance, and love. Start your mornings by mindfully pausing to see and appreciate three things you are grateful for and writing them down.

Try Deep Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing involves intentionally changing your breathing pattern. Because our breathing is shallow most of the time, we may not be inhaling as much oxygen as we need. Deep breathing exercises can help relieve stress and anxiety by helping you balance the oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body, producing a calming effect.

Furthermore, deep breathing activates the vagus nerve, the part of the parasympathetic nervous system which regulates the body’s reaction during rest. The stimulation of the vagus nerve raises vagal tone, which controls the ability to manage stress reactions. Breathing has the ability to modify vagal tone, reducing stress and anxiety symptoms.

Also, when you breathe with awareness, your mind remains in the present moment. It slows down, lowering the quantity of cortisol in your blood.

Summary

Although anxiety can be severe and persistent, it is also a treatable condition. Developing tools for managing stress can help you identify your anxiety triggers, alleviate the symptoms, and cope with challenges more successfully.

Combined with self-care strategies, anxiety counseling is the most effective strategy to overcome your symptoms and regain control of your life and well-being. Reach out today if you’d like help managing your or your child’s anxiety.