Beyond Nervousness: How Anxiety Affects Your Daily Life
Anxiety Disorders

Beyond Nervousness: How Anxiety Affects Your Daily Life

December 2024
8 min read
Dr. Geoff Nugent

Understanding the difference between normal nervousness and clinical anxiety, and discovering professional treatment options to reclaim your quality of life.

You have a test, a big meeting, or an important personal event, coming up soon. Do you feel nervous? That's normal, and completely healthy! And, that's not very similar to the way that clinical anxiety affects people who suffer from the condition.

Anxiety is a mental health condition that puts significant burdens on people living with it, and can negatively affect your daily life in many ways.

Once you understand how much of a difficulty and constraint your anxiety really is, you see clearly how important it is to get support and treatment for your anxiety. You deserve to feel free from concern, fear, shame, and the other negative emotions that come with clinical anxiety.

At Nugent Family Counseling Center, our team offers expert counseling and treatment for new and existing patients with anxiety disorders including:

Generalized Anxiety

Social Anxiety

Specific Fear-Based Triggers

The Reality of Clinical Anxiety

Important: Because feelings like fear, worry, and concern can be a normal and healthy part of life, it can be a challenge to realize that a person with an anxiety disorder is dealing with something more than just run-of-the-mill stress.

Anxiety can have a very real impact on your body. All of these issues are significant, and need to be understood as part of a real, clinical mental health problem.

Physical Effects of Anxiety

Cardiovascular Symptoms

Pounding heart, shortness of breath, faintness

Fight-or-Flight Response

Cortisone floods your body

Digestive Issues

Can harm your digestion

Sleep Disturbances

Insomnia and insufficient sleep

Types of Anxiety and Their Effects

Your anxiety could be a problem for you in different ways depending on how your symptoms manifest.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

If you have generalized anxiety disorder, daily life can feel like a fight against fear. You may not even be sure why you're afraid.

Impact: GAD can hold you back at work, at home, and in your personal pursuits, keeping you trapped behind nervousness and mental agitation.

Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is anxiety related to how you're perceived by others. You might feel insecure, or concerned about not being liked or wanted by friends and acquaintances.

Impact: Social anxiety may make you pull away from others, withdrawing from company and seeking solitude to avoid being triggered.

Specific Trigger-Based Anxiety

Some people struggle with anxiety that's specifically tied to a trigger, like a place, a person, a memory, or an activity.

Impact: You might change your life dramatically in order to avoid these triggers, limiting what you can do and where you can go.

Freedom from Anxiety with Professional Treatment

Your provider at Nugent Family Counseling Center works with you to better understand your anxiety, and the role your mental health disorder plays in your life. With the right support, you can develop better, healthier coping strategies, and even reduce the intensity or frequency of your anxiety.

Treatment Options Available

Psychotherapy, CBT, or DBT

Cognitive-behavioral therapy and dialectical-behavioral therapy to address thought patterns

Group Therapy

Connect with others facing similar challenges

Aromatherapy

Natural relaxation and stress relief techniques

Hypnosis

Deep relaxation and subconscious work

Microcurrent Electrical Therapy

Advanced therapeutic approaches

Neurofeedback and Brain Retraining

Cutting-edge approaches to anxiety management

Prescription Medications

Medical support when appropriate

To address the debilitating effects of anxiety and enjoy a fuller quality of life, contact Dr. Nugent and the team today.

Our Locations

San Jose, California

Los Gatos, California

Reno, Nevada

Schedule Your Appointment

Take the first step toward freedom from anxiety. Led by Dr. Geoff Nugent, our team can help you or a loved one reclaim better quality of life.

Book Your Appointment

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