Finding ways to cope with anxiety can be difficult as each person is unique and has their own triggers. Of course, there are plenty of strategies out there that can help you manage your anxiety. One of the most effective ways to do this is through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). You may have heard of it or seen it mentioned in passing. However, you’re not sure how it will help or what it’s all about.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based psychological treatment that focuses on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. As a result, this helps to reduce symptoms of and overcome unhelpful anxiety. This way of coping can be incredibly helpful if you want to learn how to manage your mental health and well-being. In this blog, we’ll discuss how CBT can be used to help manage anxiety. I will also share tips on how to use it.
How CBT Helps With Anxiety
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) reduces symptoms of and overcomes unhelpful anxiety by focusing on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The principle of it is that thoughts create feelings and those feelings then influence your behaviors. So basically, what you do in response to your anxious or negative thoughts and feelings is due to the thoughts causing them in the first place.
CBT can help people who suffer from anxiety to think, respond, and behave differently to triggering situations that would normally cause anxiety. For example, if you are feeling anxious about a job interview, CBT can help you to identify the source of your anxiety and then equip you with coping skills or tools to change your negative/unhelpful thoughts and behaviors so you can feel better.
It will help you to learn coping skills and tools to help you change negative and unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. This way you can feel more in control of your anxiety, emotions, and responses to situations. The really cool thing about the CBT skills and concepts that you will learn, is that you can apply them in any situation that causes anxiety. For instance, if you’re feeling anxious about a school presentation, then you can use the CBT skills that you have.
Use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Anxiety to Manage Symptoms
As an Anxiety Therapist, the feedback I get most about anxiety from my clients is that it makes them feel stuck and trapped in a vicious cycle of anxiety. For example, they will have a negative or anxious thought then that will lead them to feel anxious or bad, and then the feeling will lead them to avoid or engage in unhealthy behaviors as a way to cope. However, the more you avoid or engage in unhealthy behaviors like isolating yourself or drinking, the more anxious and worse you will feel.
CBT can help to improve anxiety symptoms by teaching you how to identify and change these misleading and inaccurate thoughts and behaviors that you have in response to triggering situations that make your anxiety worse. Changing them will create more positive and healthy feelings. Through the use of CBT, I have seen my clients learn to break this vicious cycle. Then they live their lives without anxiety stopping them by learning helpful and sustainable ways of thinking and behaving.
Tips For Using CBT to Manage Anxiety
Using CBT for the first time to manage your anxiety can make you feel lost as it is completely new to you. And that’s okay! This is why it is important to have support from a therapist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety. With that said, here are some tips and advice on how to use CBT to manage your anxiety:
Try Observing Your Thoughts
Instead of automatically believing your negative thoughts, try observing them. A helpful way to begin this practice of observation is to write down your thoughts. No matter what comes to mind, write it all down.
Challenge Those Thoughts
After you have written down all of your thoughts, challenge the negative ones. Use the friend technique. This is where you think “what would I tell a friend that I care about deeply if they came to me with the same thoughts?”. This will help you to come up with a more positive way of viewing those negative thoughts.
Keep Practicing
It takes time to “rewire” and form new ways of thinking. Especially when it concerns negative thoughts. This is why you should continue the observation and challenging process! It will help to establish new pathways in your brain. This will help you to better manage your anxiety in the long run.
Get Help Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy For Anxiety
You are the person you speak to the most. So when you’re dealing with anxiety that interferes with your life, you’re the expert on it. However, having a therapist to speak with can be helpful to give you a different or new perspective on your anxiety that you may not have considered before. Through therapy, you can also learn how to effectively cope and stop letting anxiety take over your life. In sessions with my clients, I often remind them when they’ve been dealing with anxiety for a while, it can create false stories about their capability and their life.
You are more capable than your anxiety lets you believe. CBT can help you to take back control of your thoughts and feelings so that anxiety and fear don’t have such a big influence on your life. So don’t be afraid to reach out for help and start using CBT to manage your anxiety today! With patience, dedication, and a good support system, you can start to take charge of your anxiety and live the life that you deserve.
Begin Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety in Orange County, CA
Having an effective way to cope with anxiety can really change your life. Not only to manage your current symptoms but to stay ahead of them and prevent them from taking over. At Care Therapy I specialize in working with women who have anxiety. I have a deep understanding of the unique challenges they face. I want to support you in being able to make the changes needed so you can live a life free of anxiety that is highly fulfilling and meaningful. If you are interested in starting Therapy for Anxiety, follow the steps below to begin your journey to healing:
One: Schedule a Free 30-minute Consultation
Two: Get to know more about me and my Services
Three: Reach out to me via email @support@caretherapyonline.com or call 949-441-CARE
Four: Start finding a way to live a life free of anxiety and full of meaning!
Other Therapy Services Offered by Care Therapy ONLINE
You’re just trying to get the help you need to manage your anxiety and feel better. That’s why Care Therapy Online offers a variety of therapy services to meet your individual needs. Having an anxiety therapist in Orange County, CA who understands that can help you take control of your life from anxiety. This is why in addition to Therapy for Anxiety, I also work with women who are struggling with depression and women who are in the midst of kidney failure and dialysis. You can thrive not just survive, and it can start today!