Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) can make it difficult to stop worrying, even when you know there may not be a reason to be this concerned. You may find yourself constantly anticipating what could go wrong, thinking through every possible outcome, or feeling responsible for preventing problems before they happen.
Worry can focus on many areas of life, including work, health, relationships, finances, family, or everyday responsibilities. Over time, persistent worry can leave you feeling tense, exhausted, distracted, or unable to fully enjoy the present moment.
Anxiety disorder is highly treatable. At Wise Mind Counseling, I provide anxiety therapy in Green Bay, Door County, and tele-health throughout Wisconsin. Treatment is individualized based on your symptoms, needs, and goals. I use evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to help you change patterns that keep chronic worry going.
What Does Generalized Anxiety Disorder Look Like?
Everyone worries from time to time. With generalized anxiety disorder, worry becomes difficult to control and begins to interfere with daily life.
You may experience:
- Excessive or persistent worry about everyday situations
- Difficulty stopping or controlling worry
- Feeling like you need to anticipate and prepare for everything that could go wrong
- Difficulty relaxing or being present in the moment
- Muscle tension, restlessness, headaches, or stomach discomfort
- Fatigue or difficulty sleeping
- Difficulty concentrating because your mind is constantly occupied with worry
- Overestimating the likelihood of negative outcomes
- Underestimating your ability to cope when something difficult happens
- Avoiding situations or experiences because of anxiety
Sometimes, people respond to worry by trying to solve every possible problem, seek reassurance, or repeatedly think through what might happen. Others try to push worry away, distract themselves, or avoid thinking about things that feel threatening. Although these strategies can provide temporary relief, they can unintentionally keep the cycle of anxiety going.
How CBT Can Help With Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured, skills-focused treatment that can help you understand the patterns that maintain chronic worry and develop more effective ways of responding to anxiety.
Treatment may help you:
- Recognize patterns that keep worry going
- Evaluate anxious predictions more realistically
- Build confidence in your ability to cope with uncertainty
- Reduce behaviors used to control, avoid, or get reassurance about anxiety
- Learn to respond differently when worry shows up
- Gradually approach situations you have been avoiding
- Become more comfortable with uncertainty rather than trying to eliminate it
- Learn to decrease chronic tension associated with anxiety
Exposure for Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Exposure can be an important part of CBT for GAD. Rather than continually trying to prevent anxiety or gain certainty about what might happen, exposure gives you opportunities to practice facing uncertainty and allowing uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to be present.
Depending on your goals, this may involve approaching situations you have been avoiding or intentionally facing feared possibilities through imaginal exposure.
Over time, you can learn that you do not need to resolve every worry, avoid every uncomfortable feeling, or know exactly what will happen in order to move forward.
Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Anxiety
Mindfulness can help you notice anxious thoughts and feelings without automatically getting pulled into them. Instead of arguing with every worry or trying to make it disappear, you can learn to observe what is happening and return your attention to the present moment.
Self-compassion can also help you respond to yourself with greater kindness and understanding when anxiety is difficult. These skills can help you develop a less judgmental and more flexible way of responding to anxiety.
Common Questions About Anxiety
How is generalized anxiety different than everyday worry: Everyone experiences worry related to life events. Everyone experiences worry related to everyday life events. Everyday worry is usually connected to a specific problem and tends to decrease when the situation is resolved. GAD involves excessive, difficult to control that worry interferes with life. It also involves body and behavior changes and is more than simply worry thoughts.
Why is it so difficult to stop worrying: Worry is both a symptom of anxiety and something that can keep anxiety going. Worry can create a temporary sense of control, preparedness, or responsibility. When you worry, it may feel like you are doing something useful—thinking ahead, preparing for problems, or trying to prevent something bad from happening. This can briefly reduce anxiety and make worrying feel like the responsible thing to do.
Over time, this can create a cycle: when anxiety shows up, your brain learns to respond with worry as a way to try to prevent problems or make uncertainty feel more manageable. Worrying can become an automatic response—even when it ultimately keeps anxiety going.
How to treat chronic worry: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety can help you change how you respond to worry thoughts. CBT teaches you how to allow the worried thoughts to come and go while you mindfully return to the present moment.
Instead of trying to answer every worry thought or get rid of “what if” questions, treatment can help you become more comfortable with uncertainty, reduce behaviors that keep worry going, and build confidence in your ability to cope with whatever happens.
Anxiety Therapy in Green Bay
Green Bay Location:
321 Saint George Street
Green Bay, WI, 54302
Treatment is tailored to your symptoms and the individualized patterns that keep your anxiety going. The goal is to help you build practical skills, become more comfortable with uncertainty, and spend less time controlled by worry.