Can CBT Help With Anxiety?
It’s another morning, and you wake up with a pit in your stomach. You didn’t sleep well and feel tense and overwhelmed already. This is the reality for most people who are living with anxiety. It’s a constant cycle of negative thoughts, extreme stress, and never feeling quite right.
Anxiety is one of the most common yet treatable mental health conditions. Unfortunately, chronic anxiety will not just go away on its own. Once an anxiety disorder such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) develops, without treatment, it will just continue to exist or even worsen over time. There are many treatment methods for anxiety. CBT is one of the most powerful tools out there for treating anxiety. Let’s learn how.
CBT Explained
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an approach to treat a variety of mental health concerns. Instead of focusing on the past, CBT examines how negative thoughts impact behaviors and feelings. More than that, it helps to change all three of these areas by turning them into a more positive perspective.
CBT And Its Connection To Transforming Anxiety
A hallmark sign of anxiety is negative thoughts that spiral out of control. You begin worrying about one thing only to obsess over it. And then your brain automatically goes to the next thing until you are cycling through so many negative thoughts and worries that your head feels like it’s spinning.
Reducing Excessive Worrying
Worrying is not something unusual. It’s a normal part of life. We feel stressed over everyday life, finances, or a never-ending to-do list. This is taken to a new level for people with chronic anxiety; worrisome thoughts over absolutely everything. Feeling so stressed over to-do lists you don’t even know where to start.
CBT can help change these thought patterns that inevitably just cause anxiety symptoms. This is done by changing the pattern of thought processes that start anxiety. It also challenges these thoughts when irrational fears of what could happen to occur. This will help prevent irrational fears from spiraling out of control in the first place.
Recognizing Physical Symptoms Of Anxiety
Anxiety does not just manifest itself in our thoughts. When anxiety becomes out of control, it also manifests itself through physical symptoms such as:
Headaches
Stomachaches
Muscle tension
Racing heart
Feeling sweaty/clammy for no reason
Insomnia (trouble sleeping)
A lot of times, we experience these sensations without being able to attribute them to anything specific. Without a known cause, this can be an indicator that someone is experiencing chronic anxiety. Feeling any of these symptoms for no reason can spiral your anxiety even more. It can cause you to question whether or not you have something more serious medically going on. CBT shows the connection between how negative thoughts can cause physical symptoms.
Techniques For CBT
So, how exactly does CBT work? Depending on the situation, multiple approaches can be used.
Exposure Therapy
In a safe environment, a therapist will expose their client to what triggers their anxiety. They will teach relaxation techniques as they are exposed to what triggers their anxiety. This will help desensitize the trigger so they are no longer impacted by it.
Reframing
This is the technique with CBT that specifically works to retrain negative thought patterns. After identifying the thoughts, a therapist will help reframe them into more positive ones.
What To Do Next
If you are experiencing anxiety or other mood disorders, you may feel as if you will never be able to feel normal again. This couldn’t be further from the truth. To give yourself a chance to lessen your anxiety, feel free to contact me. Through CBT, I can help you cope with anxiety, stress, and mood issues.
