Anxiety Breakdown Pt2 "What Can I do About My Anxiety?"

Alright, so you told me you've been experiencing anxiety and wondering what you can do about it. Yeah, I mean, you're a therapist. What do you do with your clients? Well, I usually break anxiety down into two parts. The first is finding ways to calm your mind and body using coping skills. Okay, I've heard that term coping skills being thrown around quite a bit. What does that actually mean? Coping skills are any behavior or exercise that help you feel better. Whether it's exercising, meditating, reframing negative thoughts, or even playing with your dog.

I do love playing with my dog. Exactly. There are so many healthy ways to cope and no one coping skill works for everybody. So it's important to try a bunch and see what works best. I think I'll go with playing with my dog. Sounds good. That's one of my favorites too. But once you have those coping skills, the second part of treating anxiety is gradually leaning into those anxieties and fears and beginning to challenge them. So what is challenging your anxiety actually entails? I work with clients to purposely partake in activities that challenge their anxiety.

For example, you go in and out of your comfort zone until your comfort zone expands. Then those anxiety triggers become less powerful and overwhelming. Okay, that makes sense. I mean, I usually just avoid things that make me anxious. Exactly. Avoidance feels good in the moment, but in the long term it perpetuates the anxiety and makes it worse in the long run. Thanks. That actually makes a lot of sense. Oh, and medications can really help as well. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Meds scare me. I'm not doing those.

Okay, well, we can save that issue for another video.