Looking For Anxiety Therapy?
-Are you experiencing racing thoughts?
-Do you feel overwhelmed?
-Are you avoiding certain situations or people?
-Is sleeping soundly a thing of the past?
Simply put, if you answered yes to these questions, you might be experiencing anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety range from minor worrying to full blown panic attacks. Debilitating social anxiety could make you avoid important situations. Additionally, anxiety could be affecting your work performance. Nonetheless, whether it’s a little bit of anxiety or a lot, anxiety therapy can help.
Anxiety Therapy in Ventura can help.
Symptoms of Anxiety
Excessive Worrying
Feeling Nervous
Trouble Sleeping
Agitation
Difficulty Concentrating
Tiredness
Body Tension
Sweating
Upset Stomach
Panic Attacks
Health Anxiety
Social Phobia
Irrational Fears
Hyper Arousal
Derealization/Depersonalization
Anxiety Syndromes & Subtypes
Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors (Trichotillomania/ hair pulling, nail biting, skin picking)
Panic Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Derealization/Depersonalization Disorder
Phobias- Claustrophobia
More….
Anxiety Disorders Are Common
You are not alone. In the United States, anxiety disorders affect 40 million adults. In fact, anxiety is the most common mental illness in the country. Having anxiety could be a result of childhood trauma such as bullying or an unstable home and family life. Additionally, It could also arise from a recent event that was distressing. Overall, symptoms of anxiety can pop up due to many life circumstances and a variety of factors.
Unfortunately, many adults do not seek treatment for their anxiety symptoms. Subsequently, many adults self treat anxiety with alcohol, illegal drugs, overuse of prescription drugs, or other behaviors. This can result in isolation from family, friends, work and other life events. There is no shame in having anxiety. Ultimately, receiving anxiety therapy can help you to live a fuller life.
My Clinical Background With Anxiety
Throughout my clinical career, I have worked in intensive outpatient and residential clinics throughout California. Importantly, I’ve supported people with a variety of mental health diagnosis’.
Currently, I enjoy the private practice setting and working one on one with clients in Ventura California or online. Using cognitive, experiential, and nervous system regulation techniques, I have seen clients transform their stress and anxiety. Overall, anxiety treatment helped them to feel more confident and comfortable again.
Therapy For Anxiety
As an anxiety therapist, I utilize many different therapeutic approaches. First off, I approach anxiety holistically and tailor treatment to the individual client. Simply put, I like to use a variety of mind and body tools that you might not get from a basic talk therapist. Overall, talk therapy only gets you so far when it comes to anxiety relief. Therapy for anxiety does take a mind-body approach.
Anxiety Therapies I Use
The main modality I use is Coherence Therapy. Importantly, Coherence Therapy is a depth oriented therapy that explores the unconscious beliefs and schemas that might be keeping you anxious. Basically, it helps to get to the root of the anxiety.
Also, I might use cognitive therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Mainly, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy explores how our thoughts affect how we feel. Separately, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is based life values and making life choices according to your values. Equally important, ACT also has tools to unhook from unhelpful thoughts, worry, and rumination.
Other Anxiety Tools
Emotional Freedom Technique– EFT is a great tool for overwhelm and settling yourself. Interestingly, studies have shown that EFT helps lower cortisol in the body which is a stress hormone. In short, you can find more info about EFT HERE.
Mindfulness– In addition, I might add in mindfulness techniques such as breath meditations and progressive muscle relaxation. To clarify, mindfulness techniques are important because they teach us to remain in the present moment not in the future, where anxiety often lives. Often, with anxiety, we ruminate about the future or are upset about the past.
Nervous System Regulation
Nervous system regulation is important when it comes to anxiety relief. From my training in Somatic Experiencing, a dysregulated nervous system can play a big roll in anxiety. Therefore, I teach somatic tools to help you come back to calm.
To explain, many people with anxiety are often stuck in a state of flight/ fight/ freeze. Above all, their brain is always on alert, scanning for danger. Unfortunately, being stuck in this high arousal state can be tough on the body and mind. Importantly, the goal is to activate the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system- rest and digest. When we are able to return to a rest and digest state more often, our thoughts slow down and our bodies regulate. Simply put, I support my clients in being more centered, grounded, and safe.
Healing from anxiety is possible! Anxiety Therapy can help.
Frequently Asked Questions
My anxiety is terrible. Will I need medication?
Medication is a very personal decision and could be part of your anxiety treatment. Surely, lifestyle changes and anxiety treatment can help, but it can take time for changes to happen. Overall, medication might help you feel stable faster and more emotionally available for therapy. But as I have said, the decision is up to you. Always speak to a psychiatrist to discuss your options.
Can you help with anxiety attacks?
Anxiety attacks are scary. Additionally, not feeling in control over your body is a terrible feeling. But anxiety attacks can be a thing of the past. During anxiety treatment, we will discover what events or thoughts might be setting off the attacks. Often, we have anxiety over having anxiety attacks! By and large, learning how anxiety attacks work can help to make them go away or lessen dramatically.
Can anxiety contribute to health issues?
Chronic stress and anxiety has been linked to illnesses and other mysterious bodily issues. Definitely, when you’re constantly stressed, your body reacts. After all, the mind and body are connected. Luckily, I work with many people who have somatic (body) symptoms. Calming the anxiety helps to calm the body symptoms. Examples of mind-body syndromes are: Irritable Bowl Syndrome, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, TMJ, Vulvodynia, and more. Click HERE to find out more on how I work with these issues.
Reach Out
Anxiety therapy in Ventura, California
To sum up, I am available for in person and online anxiety therapy. My office is located in Ventura, California. It’s close to Oxnard, Ojai, Santa Barbara, and Thousand Oaks. Feel free to call me or send me an email and we can begin working on your peace of mind. Lets start anxiety treatment now.
Feeling Overwhelmed? Whether you are a Highly Sensitive Person or just someone with a lot of Anxiety, coping with feeling overwhelmed can be challenging. The phrase “Too much to do, too little time” probably rings true! Maybe, it’s a hectic family life, a job that’s demanding, or health problems you’re experiencing. Life has its way of being overwhelming! Undoubtably, some people struggle more than others with feeling overwhelmed. 9 tips to help when overwhelming feelings or stressful life events take over. 1. Keep a daily To-Do List. Trying to remember fifty different things that you need to accomplish a day will definitely overwhelm you! It can help to get the small things done first, so your list gets smaller faster. Also, a daily planner can help. Getting organized, and writing everything down will definitely take a load off. My favorite daily planner which also has a To-Do list on each page is by Day Designer. But, there’s also Google Calendar if online organization is your thing. 2. Don’t take on too much at once. Basically, do one thing at a time. Know your limits. Most definitely, learn how to say NO. If you tend to be a people pleaser, do some self-exploration on why you can’t say no. Saying NO is a form of self-respect. Also, creating some self-boundaries can be helpful. Maybe it’s committing to stopping work at 6pm every night. Also, asking for help and delegating tasks can be a huge help. 3. Keep your environment organized. Studies have shown that clutter and mess increase cognitive overload. Clutter has also been linked to high cortisol which is a stress hormone. Overall, clean up your work space, home, car, or even computer desktop (something I am guilty of keeping messy!). Remember, Messy= Stressy! 4. Take breaks when you can. Avoid getting to the place of exhaustion. If you get a lunch break, take it. Too many people feel the need to impress their bosses by working through lunch. But, you’re not impressing anyone if you become sick or burnt out from stress! Green spaces (trees, grass) have been found to lower stress levels. Absolutely, try to get out into nature as much as possible when feeling overwhelmed. 5. Take care of yourself. Get enough sleep each night. If you are lacking on sleep or not getting good sleep, up your sleep hygiene routine (quiet, dark, cool, etc.). When a person who has anxiety doesn’t get enough solid sleep, their anxiety just gets worse. Additionally, eat well. Low blood sugar can also up your anxiety. 6. Be around people who have a regulated nervous system. When you are in a state of overwhelm, it can help a lot to be around someone who is calm. If no one is around, call a calming person on the phone. Humans are social creatures. We are not meant to be alone. 7. Close your eyes! A large part of stimulation comes through the eyes. Whether it’s just taking a few deep breaths or taking 20 minutes to meditate, closing the eyes can help you to calm down. 8. Ground yourself. Often when we are full of anxiety, it feels like we may as well be floating in space. We’ve left our bodies and probably have left earth too! Sensory experiences can help to ground you. One of my favorites is smelling your favorite essential oil. Scent is the fasted way to our limbic system which regulates emotions. Besides that, just orienting to where you are can help ground. What does it feel like to be supported by your chair? Try tapping your feet on the ground a few times. 9. Talk to a therapist. Sometimes dealing with overwhelm takes some extra help. If you are interested in working with me, send me a MESSAGE. I see clients in person in Ventura, California and online all over.
Healing Visualizations We all know what it’s like to close our eyes and visualize ourselves sitting or lying on a warm beach, with white sand, listening to the sounds of a blue green ocean crashing softly. A slight smile might appear on our face, our shoulders might drop down, a calming exhale releases from our lips. Then, we might start to melt into the couch we are sitting or lying on! If we can get really deep into the visualization, it’s almost like actually being on that beach. After that, when we open our eyes, we are a little bit calmer and centered. Utilizing Healing Visualizations are an amazing way that we can turn on our relaxation response, come to a place of calmness, away from the hecticness of daily life. The Science Behind Healing Visualizations But what else can Healing Visualizations do to enhance our lives? What can they do to combat our fears, phobias, and anxieties? A 1995 study led by Harvard Medical School Neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone looked at two groups of people practicing the piano. Both groups were brand new to learning the piano. One group was able to physically play the piano over 5 days and the other group only mentally rehearsed themselves playing the piano over 5 days, meaning they visualized themselves playing the piano. After, researchers then mapped the brains of all the participants. The piano players that only visualized playing, had nearly the same amount of brain map changes as the people that physically played the piano. Pretty cool stuff! So just by using visualization and other mental rehearsal techniques, real brain changes took place. “When people close their eyes and visualize a simple object, such as the letter A, the primary visual cortex lights up, just as it would if the subjects were actually looking at the letter A.”- The Brain That Changes Itself, Doidge. Using Daily Visualizations Mental rehearsal techniques such as visualization are used by sports players, surgeons, people with phobias and more. The visualizations help them prepare and subsequently succeed at what they are trying to accomplish. But how can Healing Visualizations help you? Firstly, what fears have been holding you back? What would it look like if you overcame your fears? How would your life look? Maybe you just need a boost in preparing for a big event that’s causing some stress. Why not take a few minutes and imagine yourself going through the motions of the thing/event you’ve been putting off but imagine doing it in a confident, at ease manner? See what shifts take place…. Reach Out To sum up, if you are looking for support and guidance on your healing journey, reach out! I see clients for therapy online all over California, and in person in Ventura. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7500130/ https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-03757-001 Photo Credit: “White Beach” by Trent Strohm is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Get In Touch
Call
805.669.8176
Location
5550 Telegraph Rd. Ventura, California, 93003
Located near Ojai, Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks.
Also seeing clients for online therapy all over.
