Anxiety

Facing the day…

The alarm goes off. Then, it starts…

That dreaded feeling of anxiety.

How is this possible? Nothing’s happened yet!

But there you are, worrying about everything before the day even starts.

Keep moving…

You tell yourself there’s nothing to be anxious about, but your body doesn’t respond to this logic.

Yet your heart keeps racing. Your palms are sweaty.

You’re short of breath, wondering how you’ll get out the door.

Day after day…

It’s so hard to live this way, but you keep trying.

If only you knew the source of the problem, you could address it.

But you can’t pinpoint it. One day it started, and it’s been there ever since.

And when it’s not there, you worry when it will strike again!

When your body won’t follow what’s in your head…

I was so frightened that my jaw was quivering.

I was so upset my whole body was shaking.

I was so angry that I shook all over.

My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t hold anything.

My legs were shaking during my presentation.

If you’ve ever been in these situations, you know how telling yourself “there’s nothing to be anxious about” doesn’t help.

Your body goes into survival mode when it thinks you are in danger (when you’re anxious). Its programmed, biological response is to make you fight, flee, or fawn. Logic doesn’t matter here because your body’s primary objective is survival. When you are in this mode, the thinking brain is not on board. You can know many coping skills for anxiety, but they’re useless if they don’t work for you.

Anxiety is physiological, so the BODY must be calmed down to decrease it.

That’s where somatic therapy comes in.

Finding something that helps your body calm down is empowering because you’ll worry less about when and where you’ll get anxious again.

Here’s how somatic therapy can help…

Trauma and Tension Release Exercises (TRE)

TRE consists of six simple exercises that evoke body tremors (shaking) called neurogenic tremors. You’ll find TRE helpful if you have difficulty opening up, expressing emotions, knowing what to say, or just want to get out of your thinking brain.

Tremors are your body’s natural response to calm you down because they dissipate the excess energy needed to get you out of a real or perceived emergency. In the wild, when an animal experiences an adrenaline surge to help it escape a predator, you’ll see it shaking once they’ve escaped. In a way, the animal is better off than the human because it doesn’t have a thinking brain that constantly worries about the predator’s return!

When you do TRE, your neurogenic tremors shake out the chronic muscular tension patterns that developed to help you adapt to the environment you grew up in. To cope with stress, you learned to constrict your muscles rather than feel certain emotions. While you are shaking, you may experience certain feelings or memories.

We can do these exercises in session (some get better results here because they feel safer), or you can do them for free at home.

Most people feel so calm after doing the exercises they can fall asleep. Others report improved mood, concentration, and energy.

Physical Grounding Techniques

Physical grounding exercises in somatic therapy help you to literally feel your feet on the ground and your lower body. We are generally a top-heavy culture and don’t realize we aren’t feeling the lower part of our bodies.

With our breath and energy in the upper part of our body, we are ungrounded. We can breathe shallowly in the chest and hyperventilate.

Using this technique, we will physically bring your energy and breath down, helping you feel grounded and centered.

You’re at a decision point…

You can’t treat anxiety without addressing how it’s rooted in your body. That’s why so many coping skills based on your head and logic simply don’t work.

Anxiety can be debilitating. Why live with it when you don’t have to?

It’s time to head for a solution!

All you have to do is reach out. Give me a call today to schedule your free consultation: (480) 677-1198.