‘How anxiety affects you’; ‘What anxiety disorder do I have’ and ‘Will anxiety go away’ are some of the biggest search terms on the internet. If you’re wondering how anxiety affects you (and would love to know that anxiety will go away with the right help!) then you’ve come to the right place.

How Anxiety Impacts You

If you have been diagnosed with anxiety you may be wondering the ways anxiety can impact you and are trying to make sense of anxiety. For many clients, being diagnosed with anxiety such as GAD (generalised anxiety disorder) PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or Complex PTSD can feel like a scary place to be.

With any mental health condition, there is always a spectrum. You may experience low-level anxiety, a sense of feeling on edge, anticipation that ‘something’ bad is going to happen, and may have found ways to cope with the anxiety. You may even consider yourself as having high-functioning anxiety because you can, to a degree, still function and go to work.

For some people, the anxiety can make life seem smaller and smaller as they begin to avoid social situations and going out and about and meeting new people. Or the anxiety prevents them from going for new job opportunities or promotions.

Many of the clients I’ve worked with have anxiety around very specific situations such as a fear of public speaking. This fear of public speaking can impact people in a variety of ways from a fear of speaking up in team meetings to a fear of speaking in front of a large group of people. Clients have shared that as they climb up the career ladder the greater the anxiety which leads them to begin looking for ways to overcome the fear of public speaking.

Some people may experience anxiety as OCD – obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD can begin very innocently such as additional washing of hands, or checking that windows and doors are closed. It’s very normal for example that you may check that things are switched off before leaving the home. I check more than once I have the keys to my home when I go out! When people need help to overcome OCD, this behaviour starts to rule their lives. People experience intense fears and anxiety if they don’t carry out these behaviours or rituals. Back in my old HR days, I came across a nurse who worked in intensive care within a hospital. She was obsessed about which plus went in which sockets, to the degree, that she would unplug life support machines to get the plugs lined up in the right order for her. A behaviour which at the time, led her to lose her position.

Equally, you may experience anxiety along with panic attacks and a constant feeling of dread, struggle to focus and concentrate, worrying about the future and worst-case scenario thinking. Depending on how long you’ve been struggling with anxiety you may feel you can’t continue and could even experience suicidal thoughts.

As an example, a police officer within the police force could witness a traumatic scene. The impact of this event could lead to PTSD and without the right help and intervention to process the trauma through the mind, creates flashbacks, and compromises judgement, decision-making, emotional responses, behaviour, overall performance and long-term health.

I love working with clients who have PTSD and Trauma because I know how powerful hypnotherapy for PTSD and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) for PTSD are. Laura experienced anxiety for many years and was advised by her GP that the anxiety was something she would have to learn to cope with. When Laura contacted me to get help with anxiety I spotted straight away that she had PTSD, and in only a handful of sessions where I used hypnotherapy and EFT Tapping Therapy to treat the PTSD, the transformation in Laura was incredible. You can hear about her story of overcoming PTSD here.

The Connection Between Anxiety Disorders

While there are different types of anxiety disorders, the one thing they all have in common is repetitive anxious thoughts.

Often people who have experienced feeling anxious and living in an anxious state of mind for a long time have lost track of what created the anxiety in the first place. People with anxiety experience consistent habitual anxious thinking, which holds them in survival mode. They overthink everything and spend a lot of time worrying about the future and things that haven’t yet happened.

Sadly many people don’t take action to get help with anxiety for years before reaching out. Some people can believe that the anxiety is part of who they are, or that they are simply an ‘anxious person’. Some people don’t think they can get help with anxiety because they may have tried counselling for anxiety or CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) for anxiety and not got the results that are possible.

How To Get Help With Anxiety.

If you have tried counselling for anxiety or CBT for anxiety, like Caroline, you may feel that anxiety is something you have to live with. The reality is that your brain is made of neural plasticity. This means that, with the right intervention, the brain can be rewired. This means that the way that you think can be changed, and the way that you feel can be transformed from anxiety to feeling calm and safe in your body. A great example of this is Caroline. Caroline had experienced feeling anxious for over 40 years. The anxiety she experienced was at a level that she struggled to remain in jobs, needed to take a beta blocker to leave the house and felt she didn’t want to live anymore.

After only 3 months of working together using a combination of Life Coaching, MAP, Hypnotherapy and EFT this is what Caroline had to say…

I contacted Sara for help with anxiety which I’d struggled with for so many years. After using a mixture of different therapy techniques and a learning of how my mind was working, I’m now enjoying areas of life again I hadn’t been able to before. Sara is warm, always understanding and just excellent at what she does, I can’t recommend her highly enough! I’ve come away from our sessions with a completely different outlook to life that will stay with me forever.

– Client

No matter how long you have experienced feeling anxious, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Through a combination of creating a new understanding in your mind of what anxiety is, and as some clients describe ‘rewiring the way you think’ you can find freedom from anxiety. This process of working has been such a liberating experience as many of my clients report in their testimonials.

Are you ready to wave good bye to anxiety, PTSD, CPTSD, Panic attacks or OCD? Schedule a free consultation now to learn how you can join the many success stories.

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Sara Maude

Sara Maude is an Edinburgh Hypnotherapist, Solution-Focused Psychotherapist, EFT Practitioner, Transformational Coach and International Wellbeing Trainer providing in-person and online sessions. Sara provides problem-free therapy which goes deep into the heart of the unconscious mind to create powerful lasting change.