Anxiety is all about threat and danger, where the fear that you feel is out of proportion to the actual threat itself. However, anxiety can be managed. It can be downgraded to concern.
Understanding Anxiety and How it Affects You
Anxiety is the most common issue people bring to psychotherapy. Because of this, the coaching industry increasingly focuses on understanding and managing it. Many coaches now offer anxiety management programmes to support clients more effectively. It’s one of several areas where psychotherapy and coaching merge.
Perceived threats—real or imagined—trigger anxiety. When it becomes unhealthy, you overestimate danger and underestimate your ability to cope. Consequently, your mind jumps from one potential catastrophe to another, making focus difficult.
People often avoid situations they fear or seek reassurance from others. Some turn to alcohol or drugs—prescribed or recreational—to suppress anxiety. While these strategies may provide short-term relief, they often prolong the problem.
Reduction or Shift?
Some therapeutic models treat anxiety solely as a symptom to reduce. They aim to eliminate it completely. I take a different approach: emotions are valid and necessary. Effective CBT for anxiety management shifts your perspective—moving from anxiety toward concern, healthy worry, or even nervous excitement.
Concern still highlights potential danger and signals that something needs attention. You stop overestimating threats and underestimating your capacity to respond. In practice, your mindset shifts from “It’s going to happen and I can’t cope” to “If it happens, I’ll handle it then.”
This approach encourages rational, healthy thinking. Some worry is natural and even helpful. Concern helps you prepare without panic. When you stay focused, you avoid catastrophising, reassurance seeking, and self-medicating.
In short, anxiety may try to dominate you, but you remain in control of concern.
Common Causes and Types of Anxiety
Almost anything can trigger anxiety: exams, performance reviews, finances, health, relationships, or concern about what others think. Anxiety can also appear as separation anxiety or anxious attachment in close relationships.
Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, indecision, and procrastination often stem from underlying anxiety. Struggles with control or uncertainty do too. You can even become anxious about feeling anxious—a feedback loop that may trigger panic attacks and, in some cases, panic disorder.
Specific phobias trigger intense, irrational fears of objects, activities, or situations. Social anxiety, often driven by fear of negative judgment, is also called social phobia. Agoraphobia causes fear of being trapped in public spaces such as cinemas, restaurants, or buses. People may avoid these settings and, in severe cases, remain housebound.
And That’s Not All
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) involves persistent, unrealistic worry about many everyday matters. It often leaves you feeling constantly tense or overwhelmed. Meanwhile, other related conditions — Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and acute stress — were once classed as anxiety disorders. Today they are viewed separately, though they share overlapping symptoms. I work with OCD in a way that parallels anxiety treatment, while acute stress forms part of my stress management programme. I do not treat PTSD.
How Therapy & Coaching Help Manage Anxiety
I use both Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Hypnotherapy to help clients manage anxiety effectively. These methods can be applied separately or in combination.
CBT remains the gold standard in anxiety treatment. I use a specific form called Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), shown by research to be highly effective. REBT focuses on identifying unhelpful, irrational beliefs that fuel anxiety. It replaces them with balanced, rational thoughts that help shift anxiety into concern, calm, or confidence.
Hypnotherapy is also evidence-based and proven to support anxiety management. It helps move your nervous system from fight-or-flight into rest-and-digest. Through guided relaxation and focused attention, hypnotherapy builds resilience, strengthens emotional control, and reinforces progress made in CBT.
Together, these approaches create a powerful and lasting foundation for anxiety recovery. Studies show that they can not only help with anxiety, but also with GAD.
Learn to Shift from Anxiety to Calm Confidence
Worry is part of being human. We all feel it at times. Anxiety, however, is something different. It can take over your thoughts and behaviour if left unchecked. It narrows focus, drains energy, and makes everyday tasks feel overwhelming.
With the right tools and practice, anxiety can be managed and transformed. Using proven methods such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and hypnotherapy, you can learn to calm your mind and body. These approaches build resilience, improve emotional regulation, and help you respond to life’s challenges with greater ease and clarity.
Anxiety no longer needs to dominate your day. It can become a passing concern rather than a constant struggle. Through therapy and coaching, you can move from anxious reactivity to calm confidence—and regain control of your emotional wellbeing. What once felt all-consuming becomes merely a quiet background thought.
Ready to take the next step in managing anxiety? Contact me today to arrange a confidential consultation and start moving from anxiety to calm concern.