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How Anxiety Affects Your Blood Pressure (And Other Effects of Anxiety On Your Body) | Hayden Finch, PhD | Psychologist/Therapist | | Des Moines, Iowa | Little Rock, Arkansas

How Anxiety Affects Your Blood Pressure (And Other Effects of Anxiety On Your Body)

Anxiety, Stress /

Why does anxiety raise your blood pressure or make your tummy hurt?  Every symptom of anxiety actually serves a clear biological purpose.  

When something happens that triggers anxiety, a part of your nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system is activated.  You’d think that being called “sympathetic” that it’d be a nice experience to have this system activated, but it’s not.  The sympathetic nervous system is otherwise known as your fight-or flight response and gets activated when it thinks you’re in danger.  It’s actually really helpful.  Imagine you’re checking your makeup in the rear-view mirror and suddenly get aggressively honked at.  You (ok, me) feel a jolt of fear that makes you sit up straight and get your car in the correct lane.  If that fight-or-flight response didn’t get activated, you’d just keep swerving all over the road.

When the fight-or-flight system is activated, and our bodies respond in a predictable way.  And this response is what causes the physical effects of anxiety.  Here’s what happens:

 

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7 Key Differences Between Everyday Anxiety & an Anxiety Disorder| Psychologist Dr. Hayden Finch

7 Key Differences Between Everyday Anxiety & an Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety, Blog, Panic Attacks /

Anxiety is a normal part of everyday life.  Fear and anxiety and even panic have evolved as useful survival tools.  If there’s a threat to our survival, it behooves us to be able to activate our fight or flight system and GTFO.  Know what I mean? But fear and anxiety and panic that bleed into our everyday lives can sometimes push beyond what’s normal and become a disorder.  How do you know whether what you’re experiencing is anxiety or an anxiety disorder? I’ve got 7 key differences between anxiety and anxiety disorders for you.

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10 Questions to Ask Yourself to Stop Overthinking| Hayden Finch, PhD | Psychologist/Therapist | | Des Moines, Iowa | Little Rock, Arkansas

10 Questions to Ask Yourself to Stop Overthinking

Anxiety, Blog, Imposter Syndrome, Self-Criticism & Perfectionism /

Overthinking is a real issue for many of my clients.  They tell me that they think about the same issues, problems, fears, or worries far too much or for far too long, and they realize it creates unnecessary anxiety.  But they’re not sure how to stop it.  Today, I’ve got 10 questions to ask yourself to stop the overthinking.  

 

In this week’s article, I’ll share with you 

  • 10 questions to ask yourself to stop overthinking
  • A free worksheet to help you put the questions into action and really take control of your overthinking
  • A complete example using the worksheet to work through one of the issues my clients overthink the most….see how to use the questions in action

 

Dive in here!

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6 Triggers for Anxiety So You Can Stay Ahead of It | | Psychologist Dr. Hayden Finch

6 Triggers for Anxiety So You Can Stay Ahead of It

Anxiety, Blog, Imposter Syndrome, Panic Attacks /

Knowing what triggers your anxiety can help you predict when it’s going to flare up so you can double down on your healthy coping strategies (I brought you 9 of my personal favorites last week) and hopefully prevent a meltdown, breakdown, or shutdown.  Today, I’m bringing you 6 triggers for anxiety so you can stay ahead of it.

 

Everyone has their own idiosyncratic anxiety triggers.  For some people it’s being away from home, for others it’s public speaking, and for some it’s spiders or balloons or even puppies.  This post isn’t about listing every single thing that could trigger anxiety (that’d be impossible)…it’s about listing the general life factors that trigger just about everyone’s individual brand of anxiety.  

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Anxiety vs. Fear vs. Panic: How to Tell the Difference | Psychologist Dr. Hayden Finch

Anxiety vs. Fear vs. Panic: How to Tell the Difference

Anxiety, Blog, Panic Attacks, Stress /

Anxiety, fear, and panic are such similar emotions and experiences that we often assume they’re just the same thing. But actually they’re different, and knowing the difference can help you communicate better with your doctors, know what information to actually be researching on your own, and hopefully finally find the right strategies to manage your mental health. In this week’s article, I’m telling you the key differences between anxiety, fear, and panic. Plus, I put it all together in a chart in case you’re a visual learner like I am. Charts are the best.

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14 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Therapy Sessions | Psychologist Dr. Hayden Finch

14 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Therapy Sessions

Alcoholism & Substance Use, Anxiety, Blog, Depression, Panic Attacks, Self-Criticism & Perfectionism, Severe Mental Illnesses, Stress, Therapy /

So you’ve gone through all the steps of getting a therapist — it wasn’t easy, but you did it! Congratulations! Now you want to make sure you get the most out of your therapy sessions. In today’s post, I’ll tell you what to do before each therapy session, what to do during therapy sessions, what to do after therapy sessions, and what to do between your therapy sessions to make sure you’re squeezing every ounce of juice out of your therapy that you can. Plus, I put together a worksheet to help you organize it all and maximize your therapy sessions.

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5 Things You Need to Know About Imposter Syndrome | Hayden Finch, PhD | Paradocs Psychological Services | Hayden Finch, PhD | Paradocs Psychological Services

5 Things You Need to Know About Imposter Syndrome

Anxiety, Blog, Imposter Syndrome /

Imposter syndrome is a super trendy topic on social media now.  And like anything online, it’s hard to know what information about it is legit and what information about it has been totally made up and shared enough times that it seems legit.  Unlike lots of social media concepts, imposter syndrome is an actual psychological concept.  It’s been researched and we know a lot about it. So I’m here to tell you 5 things the science says about imposter syndrome so you’ll know the real deal. 

I’ll give you the official definition and tell you some of the thinking and behavior patterns we see in imposter syndrome and tell you what we know about how it affects your mental health. 

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18 Key Characteristics of the Conscientious but Critical Personality Type | Hayden Finch, PhD | Paradocs Psychological Services | Hayden Finch, PhD | Paradocs Psychological Services

18 Key Characteristics of the Conscientious but Critical Personality Type

Anxiety, Blog, Imposter Syndrome, Self-Criticism & Perfectionism, Stress /

Have you heard of the enneagram?  It describes nine personality types that are more based in spirituality and anecdote than science, but they’re an interesting description of how we think about the world, the choices we tend to make, our personal values, how we interact with people, and how we respond to stress.  

 

A lot of the articles I write are geared toward folks who are enneagram type 1.  In part, this is because enneagram 1s tend to think nothing is ever quite good enough so they’re always on a personal improvement quest.  They love a good self-help book and are addicted to researching how to do things. In my article today, I’m sharing with you the core characteristics of type 1s — from their strengths and weaknesses to their core fears and desires.  See if you relate here.  

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