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IS ANXIETY CONSUMING YOU ?

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• Are you experiencing anxiety attacks or panic attacks?

• Does it feel impossible to quiet your mind at night when you want to sleep?

• Do you replay the same past mistakes or fears about the future in your mind over and over?

• Do you wake up each morning exhausted and terrified to face the day?

• Have you been feeling more irritable than usual?

• Is it hard to focus and get things done?

• Do you find it more difficult to “bounce back” from life’s curveballs?

• Have you tried everything and nothing seems to give you relief?

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Are you ready for a change?

As you’ve probably heard, the one thing you can always count on in life is change. You are probably at a point in your life where things are changing all around you. It could be a job change, the end of a relationship, the decline of a parent’s independence, the loss of a love one or simply things aren’t what they use to be. 

 

Now, a life change doesn’t always have to be negative. It can be an event that we have long awaited for, such as the planning of a wedding, a college graduation, getting a much-desired new job or the welcoming of a baby. These things can happen before you feel like you are ready for them, which can leave you feeling like you aren’t in control of your life.

 

While you are trying to navigate life as best you can, anxiety can start to kick in. It consumes your everyday thoughts and makes you feel stuck, hopeless and frightened.

 

Anxiety can also be triggered due to experiencing too much stress, which can wear down your resilience and lead to constant worry, negative thoughts and fears that consume your day-to-day thoughts. At times, it can also affect you physically in a variety of ways, such as neck and back pain, digestive problems, headaches, fatigue, forgetfulness, changes in appetite or changes in your sleep patterns.

 

Anxiety can also take place during different times of the day. Many experience anxiety in the morning, when they are tired, hungry and thinking about everything that needs to be accomplished in the day ahead. It can also appear at work, where your performance needs to be high, but anxiety takes away your focus from important tasks, keeping them from getting done well, on time or at all. This can sometimes lead to generating more anxious feelings due to the pressure added from decreased performance.  

 

Anxiety may show up in our relationships, as it can make us feel less tolerant and more on edge, increasing frustration and arguments with the people we love the most. Parenting may become more of a struggle for the same reasons, as we understand that children take a lot of patience! This could lead to feeling disconnected from others, especially our partners, because we don’t feel understood, we feel alone and don’t want to be bothered.

 

Ultimately, whether at home or at work, anxiety can make you feel like you are letting everyone down because you feel like you are unable to contribute your best to your work and your family. This adds more stress and more anxiety, and you find yourself in a downward anxiety spiral, unable to break the cycle.

 

The spiral is constant, because anxiety doesn’t take a day off or take breaks. It is there from the moment one wakes up, to remind us of the countless responsibilities that need to be accomplished that day, to the time one wants to go to sleep, causing sleepless nights because the racing thoughts don’t turn off.

 

There are several different kinds of anxiety, ranging from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, phobias, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Social Anxiety Disorders.