How Does Therapy Help With Anxiety?

Anxiety disorders can manifest in several forms - panic attacks, uncontrollable worry, phobias, social anxiety, or obsessive thoughts. However, it is essential to remember that anxiety, like any other illness, can be treated with proper care. 

This is where therapy comes in. Studies have shown that therapy can do wonders to reduce anxiety. A therapist will help you uncover the underlying cause like poor coping skills or repressed emotions. Therapy can be an eye-opening experience. Conversations with your therapists and online anxiety counselling will lead to several different realisations - in turn, helping you understand yourself better.

What is anxiety? 

Simply put, anxiety is your body’s reaction to stress. It manifests as feelings of worry or racing thoughts, along with physical sensations like increased heart rates or sweating. Individuals living with anxiety disorders tend to experience intrusive thoughts that may cause them to avoid situations that trigger their anxiety. 

Anxiety is your body’s alarm system signalling that something is about to go wrong. It is a completely normal reaction to situations, like moving to a new place or starting a new job or even before appearing for an exam. However, it can cause some issues when this alarm system becomes overactive and anxiety starts affecting your daily life. 

How can therapy help reduce anxiety? 

Over the years, many different therapy approaches have been developed to help with anxiety. These include techniques like Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT). All these theories have their own approaches and benefits. According to recent studies, CBT is one of the most effective approaches to treating anxiety. CBT works by helping you identify negative thought patterns and restructuring them. Essentially, it helps in changing the way you think and process situations. By changing the way you perceive situations, it will help you handle tough situations in a much better way. 

Here are a few techniques that you will learn during your therapy to help with your anxiety:

Cognitive restructuring

This is a commonly used Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) technique where you will learn to properly understand your thought process and rebuild how you think or perceive things. This might sound complex, but your therapist will be with you throughout the process. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy asserts that it is not the situation in itself, but the way in which we think about it that causes anxiety. This technique will help you identify the ways in which you perceive situations and help you handle them better. For instance, suppose an individual has a tendency to catastrophise - the tendency to jump to the worst possible conclusion in any situation. A therapist will help identify such thought patterns and teach ways to counteract these thoughts. 

Behavioural Activation

Our behaviours have a huge impact on our emotions. You might have noticed that engaging in certain actions - like taking a brisk walk or having a hot beverage -  can help you calm down even during stressful situations. Your therapist will help you identify healthy behaviours that positively influence your emotions and reduce your mood. 

Anxiety can also be cyclical. If there is some situation that causes anxiety, you might want to start avoiding these situations. This might cause you to feel some relief. However, the problem still exists and your anxiety might return. Behaviour activation can help you identify such situations and help in breaking this cycle. 

Behavioural Experiments

This technique involves questioning the validity of your thoughts in a very objective and scientific manner. In this technique, you will develop possible explanations (called hypotheses) for about any maladaptive thoughts that you may have, and try to gather evidence for these explanations. Maladaptive thoughts are ways of thinking that are irrational - they are not supported by evidence. Your therapist will guide you through identifying these thoughts, make you question the reality of these thoughts - whether they are really based on facts and then practise replacing irrational beliefs with evidence. Eventually, with practice, you will develop a healthier thought pattern and your anxiety will reduce considerably. 

Relaxation Techniques

Every therapist has several relaxation techniques in their arsenal. These techniques can be used in different situations, depending on your needs. They may teach you deep breathing techniques to help you relax during tense situations or progressive muscle relaxation to reduce anxiety and help you sleep. 

It is very important to remind yourself that you are not alone and that there are ways to get better. With the right care from qualified mental health experts, you can get better and learn to live a more balanced life.