Therapy doesn’t help everyone. For some, taking action is more effective than words. For others, “talking it out” is the most beneficial practice. Pharmaceutical treatments like anti anxiety medications can help in staving off symptoms; unfortunately, they are not preventative treatments. Therapeutic methods are evidence-based, meaning they have been found evident to effectively prevent the onset of anxiety. The work doesn’t end in the therapist’s office or when you leave the didactic lecture in treatment. Evidence based treatment methods require daily practice and committed work. Doing the work provided by therapeutic methods is more than emotional, it is neurobiological. Through incremental changes on a daily basis, you can actually reprogram the way your brain functions, including anxious reactions.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT has been a highly acclaimed practice for mental health recovery treatment since its foundation in the 1980’s. How CBT works is explained in its name. Seeking transform cognitive activity and function, CBT is a process of noticing one’s thoughts and taking action to reframe them or repurpose them. For an anxious thinker who is usually in a doomsday cycle of thinking this can be incredibly beneficial. Watching your own cognitive behavior, you learn to notice the onset of anxiety, eventually being able to pinpoint the triggers which cause it. Anxiety is full of assumptions, usually assumptions indicating the worst. Through CBT you are able to change the directions of those thoughts from hopeless to hopeful.
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
Mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy are similar in that both include the noticing of thoughts in order to change them. While CBT takes a more proactive approach to evaluating and changing thought processes, MBSR is simply about noticing the thought. When anxiety gets going, it can feel like it’s running a thousand feet per second. Feeling and thinking so much at such a rapid pace can be overwhelming. Feeling out of control of one’s own thoughts only makes anxiety worse. Acknowledging each thought or even each stream of thought as just that- thought– helps create calm. Separating fact from fiction, perception from the possible, MBSR helps to see each thought as a passing experience rather than a defining realization.
Anxiety disorders can feel like being on a train with no breaks. Learning to manage your emotions and thinking is just one part of recovery for mental health. Avalon By The Sea of Malibu is one of California’s premiere treatment centers offering mental health treatment for primary psychiatric diagnoses. Our comprehensive program combines therapeutic methods with mindfulness methods and more. For a confidential and professional assessment, call 1-855-464-8492.
