Grounding exercises can be incredibly beneficial for managing anxiety spikes after Exposure Response Prevention creates some nervous system disregulation.  

Grounding exercises help you take back control of a hijacked nervous system and re-engage in therapy.  

Trauma is one of the main contributing factors to many mental and physical health issues, but recent advancements in technology have given us a new way to tackle trauma – vagus nerve reset. 

Research has found that vagus nerve stimulation is a powerful tool for creating positive physical, mental and emotional changes. Vagus nerve reset helps us realize greater balance and harmony within our bodies as trauma gets mitigated or resolved.

Traumatic events can have a long lasting neurological effect, which may lead to anxiety and other psychological issues. While the brain's ability to cope with trauma is greatly influenced by the person's social support system, the right treatment can help people deal with their traumatic experiences in a healthy way.

Social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder, is a mental health disorder that causes intense fear and anxiety in social situations. Fortunately, there are effective treatments available to help you manage your social phobia.

Trichotillomania is an impulse control disorder, but it is highly correlated with anxiety disorders including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Specific Phobias. Due to its commonly very visible presentation in the eyebrows, eyelashes, and hairline, Trich can have a profoundly negative effect on the quality of life of those who suffer from it.

Our food and drink choices can have a tremendous impact on the efficacy of our anxiety treatment. Research shows that diet balance and gut health is associated with lower anxiety and depression, as well as reduced symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Using EMDR therapy can significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety. It helps people gain control over their thoughts and emotions so they no longer feel overwhelmed or scared by them. Additionally, it teaches clients how to identify triggers and create healthy coping strategies for dealing with stressful situations in the future. Research suggests that this type of therapy is especially effective at treating conditions like PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), phobias, panic attacks, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and other types of anxiety disorders.

When working with clients on negative self-talk, it has been helpful to externalize and name the different modes of negative dialogue that invade our brains.  I like to think of them as characters in a play, with distinct themes and personalities.  The first rule to deprogramming our negative self-talk is: Name it to Tame it.  We label the self-talk as The Worrywart, The Perfectionist, The Victim, or The Disparager.  

Many professionals misdiagnose Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and treat it accordingly.  Unfortunately, these two disorders may need drastically different treatment plans and countless clients find themselves stymied in unproductive treatment cycles. 

After six sessions of Ketamine, my process is, for now, complete. I see myself being less emotional, less reactive, and less compulsive in every realm of my life. I find that obsessions don’t circulate for more than a beat, and intrusive thoughts are far less common. The reduction in anxiety is palpable. If anxiety and OCD have robbed me of anything in my lifetime, it is this present-moment peace. Previously my brain would cycle back to anxiety like fuel. I feel like Ketamine has reset my brain to allow contentment to be the default.

One strategy of DBT treatment is reducing your physical vulnerability to anxiety. The overwhelming emotions of anxious reactions can cause an individual to lash out (or go into a self-blame spiral). While we do not want to avoid anxiety, we also do not want to leave ourselves so vulnerable to huge emotions that we are constantly riding the waves of our reactivity.

This time of year we see a tremendous uptick in stress reactions among our clients. Many find that returning to their hometowns and families to celebrate the holidays can bring up a lot of unwanted compulsions, worry cycles, and interpersonal conflict. Anxiety and OCD are both cyclical disorders, which are prone to flare ups. Here are my top four strategies for managing this time of year if you or your loved one is dealing with an anxiety disorder.

Kairos Wellness Collective now runs three robust groups for anxiety targeting middle school, high school, and college-aged young people. Unfortunately, even though many children freely share symptoms of anxiety with each other, others feel deep shame that their “fears” will be minimized or mocked by others. Creating a group environment for breathing, yoga, and mindfulness activities makes them achievable, normalized, and within reach for almost all kids.

One of the greatest mental health gifts we can give to the next generation is having the tools and skills to control the activation of their Sympathetic Nervous Systems. When we are brought into a space of healing with the parasympathetic system, we are open to the voices and perspectives in the therapy room. Our children become less dominated by the personal experience of the world, and more open to rewriting their narrative of the world.

For those with anxiety, our prefrontal cortex can be a hamster wheel of thoughts, worries, hopes, goals, fears, and feelings. Even in a dreaming state, we are processing thoughts, emotions, and memories. With ketamine, such an overloaded brain can get the opportunity for a break. After this type of Ketamine trip, clients report that they feel more at ease, and like everything matters just a bit less. Emotions are less raw, and the heart is open.

Finding the right therapist for your anxiety can be the difference between a deeply productive relationship and, in some unfortunate cases, a reinforcer of your anxious thinking patterns.  Anxiety treatment is variable and it is helpful for clients to be savvy about the different approaches. CBT and ERP are the most commonly utilized treatment modalities for OCD and anxiety; however, they are by no means the only options!

IFS (Internal Family Systems) is a burgeoning model for both therapy and self-understanding. In the IFS model, the mind is seen as a pluralistic structure. In this formulation, our psyche is made up of parts that take on specific roles based on the person’s needs. An IFS therapist supports their client in befriending all parts of ourselves, even those aspects of our mind that provoke anxiety, or intense reactivity.

In our sessions, I often assign behavioral experiments for homework. An example might be asking a chronic “lock checker” to refrain from checking the lock at night, or a client with perfectionistic OCD tendencies to send an email without double checking for spelling errors.

A bigger behavioral challenge assignment might be to spend a day prioritizing honesty over niceness.

My clients recognize the smirk on my face when I challenge them to do the opposite of what their OCD wants. My flippant remark to a client’s pushback is often: “well, let’s see what happens.”

As a mother of three teens, and therapist to dozens, I am so concerned by the tremendous uptick in anxiety disorders among this demographic. Teens no longer trust adults with their emotional and physical safety. I believe that this lack of trust is part of the fall out of schools suddenly going virtual, the world shutting down in a panicked state, sexual assaults going unpunished in our school systems, violence on the political scene, climate change as an obvious disaster that our teens will inherit, and the feeling of inevitability of mass shootings.

Sharing is healing. While CBT and ERP individual sessions can be anxiety-activating rather than soothing, groups focus on the act of sharing as a main vehicle of healing. The very act of articulating internal struggles to a supportive group is tremendously powerful. It is truly something you have to experience to understand the effect of having multiple eyes and ears attending to your story in a receptive, collective environment.