One of the most common issues that bring people into therapy is when anxiety takes over your life. The constant struggle with managing you anxiety may leave you with feeling like you do not have control no matter how hard you try. Medication mangement helps, but does not get to the root of the problem. It is important to not only learn tools and skills to manage anxiety, but to also search for the origins of why you are anxious and work toward resolve.

When it comes to treating anxiety disorders, research shows that therapy is usually the most effective option. That’s because anxiety therapy – as opposed to anxiety medication – treats more than just symptoms to the problem.

Often, these are the symptoms of anxiety:

• Nervousness, restlessness or being tense
• Feelings of danger, panic or dread
• Rapid breathing or hyperventilation
• Increased or heavy sweating
• Trembling or muscle twitching
• Weakness or lethargy
• Difficulty focusing or thinking clearly about anything other than the thing you’re worried about
• Insomnia
• Obsessions about certain ideas, a sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Anxiety surrounding a particular life event or experience that has occurred in the past, a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder

Therapy can help to uncover the underlying causes of your worries and fears, learn how to relax, look at situations in a new, less frightening way, and develop better coping mechanisms and problem-solving skills.