Is This You?
- I overanalyze
- I’m avoiding things that make me anxious
- My voice gets trembly, hands sweaty, heart pounding, it’s hard to breathe
- I don’t want to take medication or I want to get off the medication
I hear these comments frequently and I’m relieved because anxiety is one of the problems with the best prognosis! I know that our work together will get you feeling better quite quickly. Also, I know that if it’s social anxiety: that is usually a sign of a good person. You care about how you affect others.
Research on Anxiety
Research on anxiety shows that is it reduced by improving one’s self esteem. I recently found 10 published research studies that described a significant relationship between anxiety and self-esteem. One of these 10 did a meta-analysis of 18 anxiety studies.
Is this applicable to all cultures? What is especially relevant in a multicultural city like Vancouver is that is self esteem research was found to have both universal and culturally specific features. It was found to be related to personality qualities such as neuroticism (anxiety & depression), romantic attachment styles, & extraversion in 53 nations (28 languages). Another study found cultural variations in the strength of associations of self esteem with financial, friend, & family satisfaction. These were related to societal dimensions including income and individualism. So the answer is mixed: yes and no.
Speaking of self esteem and social network: Other researchers found that relationship commitment acts as a terror management mechanism (anxiety buffer).
More on this theme: Leary found that lonely people are typically anxious and depressed. Compared to people with high self-esteem, low-self-esteem persons are more likely to experience social anxiety. Anxious people are often lonely and depressed, & jealous people tend to be anxious and lonely.
Furthermore, low self-esteem has been linked to problems such as depression, alcohol abuse, suicide, and eating disorders. High self-esteem has been implicated in good mental health.
The good news is that generally positive self-evaluation seems to be culturally universal (Schmitt,D.P., & Allik,J.2005). If your self esteem or anxiety are hindering you, there is help available.
What You Can Do About It
If your self esteem isn’t positive enough, and could be causing your anxiety, it can be improved with EMDR.
“I was full of anxiety, & had trouble sleeping. Without Pamela’s help and EMDR, I couldn’t have dealt with the emotional issues & administrative tasks related to my father’s death.” – Eric Blair
Self-esteem serves an anxiety-reducing function. Many of my clients have reported that their background anxiety decreased or disappeared after we worked on increasing their self esteem. We did this by using EMDR to replace their belief “I’m not good enough” with “I’m good enough”. This happened as a byproduct of just asking them what negative beliefs resonate with them the most and what events installed or strengthened those beliefs. The most common belief: I’m not good enough. The most common reason for seeking counselling: anxiety. I just noticed these patterns by chance before looking for the studies mentioned on this page.
Contact me if you have any questions about how I can help you with your anxiety. You can use my contact form or just email me at quietleaders@gmail.com.