3 Keys to Understanding Anxiety
Welcome back! Today we are returning back to the popular topic of anxiety and the management of anxiety-related disorders. There is an abundance of research related to the treatment of anxiety disorders, but today we are going to explore the importance of understanding anxiety as a part of the treatment of anxiety.
While most people experience the sensation of fear or anxiety as a part of their normal life experiences, some signs and symptoms of anxiety reach what we referred to as “clinically significant“ levels. There are millions of Americans that suffer from these “clinically significant“ levels of anxiety, and meet the criteria for anxiety disorders. (1)
If you or someone you love are one of these millions of Americans who are diagnosed with or experience clinically significant anxiety symptoms, here are some things that can help. Understanding your specific anxiety experience can be an important key to seeking the correct treatment, applying the correct skills, and ultimately developing a plan to manage and treat your unique experience with anxiety.
Observe it.
Not all anxiety or anxiety symptoms are the same. In fact, there are five major categories of anxiety disorders and many different subtypes under these five major categories. (2)
For this reason, being able to correctly and specifically share your symptoms with a mental health provider can be a key step in the correct diagnosis, and correct treatment of anxiety disorders. While mental health therapists and professionals should be able to assist in this process of understanding your anxiety symptoms, it is always beneficial when individual suffering from anxiety are able to bring material and information to the professional and partner with them in understanding the anxiety experience.
So when you are experiencing anxiety or thinking about the anxiety you were experiencing, here are a few questions that may get you started as you try to observe and learn more about your anxiety experience.
When do I experience anxiety most? (Times, places, situations, additional factors)
How would I describe my anxiety to another person?
What do my thoughts do or say during my anxiety experience?
What does my body feel like when I am experiencing anxiety?
How do I currently respond to the feeling of anxiety?
Determine ways to measure it.
Creating ways to measure or evaluate mental health symptoms can be an important and empowering part of understanding, and ultimately treating anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders. There are several ways to consider tracking or measuring your anxiety symptoms. These can include:
Standardized measurements are available online: There are standardized tests to evaluate and quantify anxiety symptoms. Many therapists or mental health practitioners will utilize these measures for tracking the progress of clients, but, these measures are sometimes available for self-evaluation. One of the most popular standardized measures is the GAD-7 which is a quick evaluation of all symptoms related to generalized anxiety disorder.
Mood or symptom trackers: these tools are utilized by individuals to track the symptoms that they experience. Mood and symptom trackers typically involved some kind of calendar system where the individual is able to log the symptoms, the intensity of the symptoms, and other relevant information to determine if there are patterns or trends in the way that the symptoms appear or present.
Create a scale for symptom intensity: even creating your own personal scale for anxiety symptoms can be an effective way to track progress and articulate symptoms accurately. This can be as simple as a 0 to 10 scale, a thermometer, or other scaling resource that the individual understands and uses to evaluate their own symptoms.
Ask for trusted feedback from others.
Asking others for help can be a scary and vulnerable process, but with the right people can be an incredibly helpful and insightful look into how your symptoms may be presenting, from the perspective of an observer. We do always encourage that only safe, healthy, and trusted people are brought into the process of managing mental health-related concerns, but if those types of relationships exist, it can be incredibly impactful. So if you have a trusted person in your life that may be able to offer you some insight into your anxiety experience, here are some questions you might consider asking them:
How do you know when I am experiencing more anxiety?
Do you think that there are any patterns related to when I struggle with anxiety that you can see from an outside perspective?
Do you observe that my anxiety has been trending up or down over the past few weeks or months?
It is important to remember that, individuals are the experts on their own lives, so the person experiencing anxiety will know much more about their anxiety experience than the outside observer; however, sometimes these insights can bring new light or understanding to the person struggling with anxiety.
If you are looking for more ways to manage your anxiety symptoms, our team of trained therapists is here to help. Whether through online therapy services or in person in our Arlington, Texas therapy group, we would love to connect with you. Anxiety therapy is an effective way to address anxiety symptoms, and no one should face these battles alone.
