How to manage anxiety without medication
You or someone you love is getting hijacked and robbed of the ability to fully function and enjoy life. Below find a quick list of how to manage anxiety without medication.
Lifestyle- exercise, sleep, diet, affirmations, limit consumption of digital media, get outdoors, socialize
Counseling- a good counselor can help with the following interventions:
CBT- thinking errors, affirmations https://www.bradmasoncounselor.com/cognitive-behavioral-counselor-in-georgetown-round-rock-cedar-park/
Know your triggers- avoid if reasonably possible, develop strategies for recovery
Grounding and relaxation practice- yoga, meditation
Calming self-statements- I am safe, this will pass
Limit or eliminate alcohol and caffeine
Learn if triggers are trauma related- if so a counselor trained in EMDR or ETT can assist in processing past or current traumas out of the nervous system.
Disassociation would be a sign that anxiety is trauma related. What is disassociation? This is the way the brain defends itself against overwhelming and stressful unwanted feelings. This can vary anywhere from daydreaming at its mildest to psychosis- seeing or hearing things that are not true or are not there. This serves as a way to disconnect from thoughts, feelings, memories, or identity.
Daydreaming
Freezing- your suddenly “hit a wall” and can’t think or can’t speak anymore. Your body is still there but your brain left the room! “Checking out,” shutting down, rages/meltdowns, flight/escape behaviors are all possibly signs of disassociation.
Depersonalization- being outside oneself
Derealization- a sense that the world is unreal
Amnesia- memory gaps
Symptoms of disassociation may include memory gaps, detachment, spaced out, dreamlike experience, uncertainty about oneself and identity, hearing or seeing things that are not real.
Disassociation is a sign that traumas are stored at an unconscious level in the nervous system. Medication can dull unwanted feelings as well as desired emotional states but is unlikely to remove the origin of the unwanted thoughts and feelings from the nervous system.
I use Emotional Transformation Therapy- ETT- to help people eliminate recurring trauma responses and disassociation from the nervous system. This is an attachment-based psychotherapy whose outcomes are radically enhanced with the specific application of color and light.
ETT can be used to reduce or eliminate feelings of doom, overwhelming anger, listlessness, sadness, panic, repeating unwanted internal thought patterns, chronic pain or illness including migraines and upset stomach.
How does it work?
Give me a call to find out how you can use this process to start feeling the way you want.
Brad Mason, LPC, LPA, LSSP
512-636-6250
You can also visit this website to learn more about ETT:
https://www.bradmasoncounselor.com/emotional-transformation-therapy/