EMDR FOR ANXIETY: HOW DOES IT HELP PROVIDE RELIEF?
Anxiety can feel overwhelming. Your stomach tightens into a bit of a knot. You may feel on edge. Your jaw clenches and your breathe constricts. Sometimes you think there is nothing that is going to help. You feel you will never be that calm, cool or collected person. If this sounds like you, EMDR for anxiety may just be the thing that will help you.
Although anxiety can be crippling, there is good news. We know more about treating anxiety than perhaps any other psychological problem.
EMDR FOR ANXIETY HELPS IN THESE THREE WAYS:
1. EMDR STRENGTHENS ANXIETY COPING SKILLS
You develop an ability to fully relax. Your muscles are looser. Your mind feels lighter and more flexible. Solutions to problem seem easier to find. EMDR therapy can help your body and mind get better at being “in your zone.”
Many of the anxiety clients who use EMDR begin to notice how their coping skills seem to improve effortlessly. They discovered themselves breathing more easily. They see the falseness of habitual worries and fears more easily.
2. EMDR REMOVES THE EMOTIONAL CHARGE FROM MEMORIES AND FROM IMAGES IN YOUR MIND
If you have been through something frightening in your life, like most of us, then you know what it’s like to dwell on that memory. Your mind fixates on the memories. You can tell yourself not to think about it, but that doesn’t work so well.
Some types of worry work like that. You envision some dreaded scenario in your mind, over and over. Worry is sometimes “verbal,” we tell ourselves scary things. But much worry is visual; we “see” certain scenes over and over. The power of EMDR for anxiety is that it often removes the emotional charge from such thoughts and images.
3. EMDR SHIFTS SOME OF YOUR CORE LIMITING BELIEFS
And there is something deeper and more powerful about the ability of EMDR therapy to alleviate anxious suffering. If you pursue this type of therapy, you will find that after a while, some of your most restricting negative beliefs will begin to transform. The underlying beliefs that tend to run you will begin to melt away. You will likely start to become a more calm and confident person.