email page to a friendStress & Anxiety
Your heart is beating faster. Your palms start to sweat. Your mind is racing.
These are all normal responses to stress and fear.
With an anxiety disorder, your body reacts in the exact same way, only to a situation that isn’t dangerous or stressful, and often for no known reason.
If you have an anxiety disorder you can’t stop yourself from feeling afraid or anxious even though you know there’s nothing to be really worried about.
Once you’ve experienced this kind of anxiety you may avoid whatever you believed triggered the feelings or the place where happened. You may also develop compulsive behaviours to try to prevent it from happening again.
Having an anxiety disorder can interfere with your ability to socialize or to maintain relationships. It can have a negative impact on your performance at school or at work.
Signs of extreme anxiety or panic:
- Palpitations, increased heart rate or pounding heart
- Sweating
- Trembling or shaking
- Sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
- Feeling like you’re choking
- Chest pain, pressure or discomfort
- Nausea or abdominal distress
- Dizziness, unsteadiness, lightheadedness or even fainting
- Fear of losing control or going crazy
- Fear of dying
- Numbness or tingling sensation in hands and feet
- Chills or hot flashes
- Sense of feeling unreal, disconnected from one’s surroundings or body
How Your Source Line Counsellor Can Help
With the help of your Source Line Counsellor, you can learn the art of reducing stress and anxiety. You can learn how to adjust the way you see and think about yourself and the world around you.
These are very stressful times. Instead of just looking at how you can lessen the demands outside yourself, a Source Line Counsellor can help you silence that voice inside your head – the one that is always heralding doom and disaster when you’re feeling over-stretched.
Your Counsellor can help you change some of the ways you think about life and the world around you.
Related Resources:
Here are some short articles that can help get you started in a new direction.
- Reduce Stress By "Untwisting" Your Thinking: Step One – Locating Your "Twisted" Thoughts
- Reduce Stress By "Untwisting" Your Thinking: Part Two – Some Assembly Required
Related Workshop: