Anxiety and Stress

What anxiety actually is

Anxiety is your nervous system trying to protect you. The problem is not that it exists — it is that it can become overactive, reacting to uncertainty, pressure, or past experience as if they were immediate danger. That leaves you in a constant state of low-level alertness that is exhausting to sustain.

It shows up differently for different people. Some people overthink and catastrophise. Others feel it physically — tight chest, shallow breathing, a churning stomach. Some avoid situations they once handled without thinking. Most people experience a mixture of all three.

What I can help with

I work with people dealing with generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic, health anxiety, and the kind of low-level constant worry that never quite switches off. You do not need a diagnosis. If anxiety is getting in the way of how you want to live, that is enough.

Counselling gives you somewhere to understand what is driving the anxiety rather than just managing the symptoms. Over time, that understanding changes your relationship with it.