Generalized Anxiety

What is Generalized Anxiety?


​Generalized Anxiety is common in the general population and many have or will experience excessive anxiety. The important piece to know is that anxiety is normal and necessary for our survival, but when you have too much anxiety it can affect your quality of life. When you excessively worry about everything such as friends, family, work place issues, and finances it becomes difficult to enjoy your life and the live the life you want.  

​Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety:
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• Excessive worry
• Unable to control worries
• Expecting the worse
• Anticipate disasters
• Overly concerned about friends, family, work, finances
• Irritability
• Muscle tension
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• Struggling to concentrate

Treatment:

Generalized anxiety is treatable and you can learn how to manage your anxiety. The first line of treatment for generalized anxiety is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). CBT looks at how we can start changing our thought and behavioural patterns to influence how we feel. Some people do require a combination of medications and CBT to overcome their symptoms of anxiety, but usually you can try CBT first then decide with your doctor if adding an anti-anxiety medication would be helpful. We may also include Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) to help with the anxiety. ART is an innovative and effective therapy for anxiety. 

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Panic Attacks
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What is a Panic Attack?

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Panic attacks are quite frightening when they happen to you. Often times people end up going to the emergency room because they believe they are having a heart attack. When people are not experiencing a panic attack they tend to worry about when the next attack is coming and start to avoid people and situations where the panic attack occurred.

Symptoms of Panic Attacks:

• Thoughts of dying or belief of losing their mind
• Difficulty breathing
• Feeling tense
• Nausea
• Heart races
• Sweating or flushed
• Numbness or tingly feelings

Treatment for Panic Attacks

Learning how to recognize symptoms of panic and the reason for experiencing panic can help decrease the amount of panic attacks. Relaxation strategies are also a helpful way to manage panic. Cognitive Behaviroural Therapy (CBT) is useful to help start to challenge some of the beliefs around panic attacks. You can also learn some coping skills to help manage panic attacks.

Social Anxiety
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What is Social Anxiety?

Social anxiety consists of experiencing intense fear of being embarrassed, humiliated or other people evaluating us in a negative way. Social anxiety is different than being shy; it is to the point where you avoid people and places due to fear that other people may judge you, fear that you may say something inappropriate and embarrass yourself. Triggers for social anxiety symptoms are usually social situations such as a party and performance based situations such as speaking in front of a crowd.
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Symptoms of Social Anxiety:
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• Intense fear
• Racing heart
• Sweating
• Dry mouth
• Nausea
• Shaking
• Dizziness
• Blushing

Treatment:

Social anxiety is treatable and you can learn how to manage social situations and performance based situations. Treatment for social anxiety includes psychotherapy, specifically Cognitive Behaviroural Therapy (CBT). CBT looks at how we can start changing our thought and behavioural patterns to influence how we feel. Treatment also includes doing some exposure around some of your fears in order to habituate yourself to the anxiety provoking situation. Some people do require a combination of medications and CBT to overcome their symptoms of social anxiety, but usually you can try CBT first then decide with your doctor if adding an anti-anxiety medication would be helpful. I have been utilizing cognitive behaviroural therapy for many years and have observed the benefits for many individuals.

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