Is It Necessary To Go To Psychotherapy To Manage Anxiety?
Virtually everyone, at some point in their life, suffers from excess anxiety.
Sometimes it is more about stress that appears when faced with a specific challenge that we must face at home or at work, such as reaching a productivity goal in the office or coordinating a series of domestic tasks to be completed that day. In other cases it is an anxiety that keeps us on alert without us knowing very well why, a discomfort with diffuse causes and that seems to use any excuse for us to be worried and with our pulse racing.
However, although all these kinds of experiences are relatively common, The most common thing is that those who suffer from them in their daily lives do not seek psychotherapeutic help.. This is a problem? Let’s see it.
Is it necessary to go to a psychologist during times when we suffer from anxiety?
First of all, it is necessary to clarify that anxiety itself is not necessarily a bad thing, nor an experience that should worry us when it affects us directly. In fact, all healthy people are prone to feeling anxiety relatively frequently: it is a phenomenon that is part of the basic emotional states of human beings, and if it exists it is because it has helped us survive for millions of years.
Thanks to her, we can adopt great sensitivity to risks and dangers and react in time to avoid direct or indirect damage: it is part of such a relevant adaptive mechanism that appeared a long time ago in the evolutionary line that reaches us, and in fact is present in practically all vertebrate animals (and possibly in many invertebrates as well).
Therefore, it is more useful to understand that anxiety problems are problems in a relative sense: what needs to be corrected is excess anxiety and the way we manage it, not the presence of anxiety. In fact, if we try to “eliminate” the anxiety we feel, we will become frustrated and therefore feel even more anxious.
This already gives clues as to whether it is always a problem not to go to the psychologist when we notice that we have a level of anxiety that remains relatively stable for a while. The key is not to identify the presence of anxiety in us, but to determine if it is damaging our quality of life. in a significant way.
That is to say, the criterion for deciding to go to therapy should be based not on the qualitative, knowing whether we experience anxiety or not, but on the quantitative: is it intense or constant enough to distance us from true well-being? Keep in mind that psychotherapy lasts several weeks and is usually intended as a way to overcome problems that, if not addressed by specialists, can continue to affect you in the medium and long term.
If you think this is not your case, you can always learn some guidelines to manage anxiety on your own.
It is true that not everything is reduced to having little or much anxiety. After all, there is what is known as anxiety disorders, which are psychopathologies in which anxiety and stress compromise mental health. of the person who suffers from them (and by extension, also their physical health).
However, from the point of view of someone who is considering whether to go to psychotherapy or not and who has no training in psychotherapy or psychiatry, it is more advisable not to become obsessed with these concepts. It is mental health professionals who diagnose psychological disordersand in general it is advisable not to become obsessed with these “labels” used in Clinical Psychology and limit ourselves to assessing our own satisfaction with life and the way in which anxiety influences it or not.
Establishing the degree of anxiety discomfort
Look at these guidelines to determine if you need psychological help in the face of anxiety:
What can I do if it’s not worth it for me to go to therapy yet?
If you think that anxiety does not harm you enough to go to psychotherapy, you can always try to apply some psychological keys on your own that, although they are clearly less effective than professional support in a psychologist’s office, can help you. These are some examples of those recommended habits and behavior patterns.
1. Live a healthy life
The better you are physically, the less likely you are to suffer from high levels of anxiety easily.. Above all, give great importance to getting enough sleep, and also eat a healthy diet that provides you with all the vitamins and macronutrients you need.
As I mentioned before, trying to prevent anxiety from entering our minds is totally counterproductive. It is better that you practice acceptance and give up having total and absolute control over what happens in your consciousness, and Instead, focus on directing your attention toward things that bring you satisfaction or that you find stimulating..
3. Do aerobic exercise
Aerobic exercise is very helpful to prevent and combat anxiety, both due to the release of hormones linked to physical activity and the fact that it induces a mental state in which you must focus your attention on immediate goals and the bodily sensations associated with it, therefore that the intrusive thoughts that have been worrying you will weaken and you will be able to “disconnect.”
4. Plan your schedules well
The tendency to waste time and postpone responsibilities is a great source of anxiety, and in times when the digital world constantly exposes us to distractions, it is very common to fall into these types of mistakes. To prevent situations like this, Create detailed schedules that include rest breaksso that you can meet them and they are realistic (so that you can commit more to them).
5. Train yourself
There are somewhat more elaborate techniques and strategies that can help you combat moderately high levels of anxiety in your daily life, and in this sense the courses and workshops focused on this area of emotional management can help you.
