Stress, anxiety, and ADHD.
California and Washington State
Practical, evidence-based strategies to help you be at your best.
Stressed, stretched, or scattered doesn’t have to be your normal.
The people I work with have usually spent several months thinking about doing therapy before taking action. They hesitate because they think, "Yes my stress level is pretty high right now but there's also a lot that's going well so what do I have to complain about?" Or maybe they think, "There are people dealing with way more serious things than me and I don't want to waste someone's time."
Maybe you’re here because things just bubbled over again. You haven’t slept enough this week. You almost missed another important deadline. You know you need to recharge over the weekend but you’re behind or over scheduled. Instead of being intentional about either catching up or recharging, you might blast thru the weekend going from one thing to the next to the next. Or maybe it’ll be a mix of halfhearted attempts at getting things done with a heavy dose of procrastination that’s neither productive nor relaxing. The stress will start creeping back in on Sunday and you’ll vow to do it differently next week. But then you’ll charge into Monday and the same patterns will take over.
You want to shift the pattern but…
Whenever you think about doing something, you think, “Is my stress level higher than I would like? Sure. Does it affect how I do at school/work? Does it get in the way of relaxing or enjoying downtime? Of course, but that’s normal. Everyone is stressed, stretched, and scattered. I just need to try harder, be more disciplined, or or let stuff get to me so much.”
The good news is that doesn’t have to be your normal.
I’m not saying you can “have it all” as in working 45+ hours per week *and* volunteering *and* working out or going to practice daily, *and* hitting 85 different work or school goals, *and* having time for friends and family and hobbies *and* sleeping at night. The math on that doesn’t usually work out but there are ways to unstick from anxiety and to shift out of the stressed and scattered loop. To reset the patterns that aren’t working and to do more of the things that really matter to you.
A warning though, therapy is a commitment…
A whopping 1 hour per week (or .006% of your week).
It’s probably half of the time you spend on your phone each day. Usually the question isn’t, “Do I have the time?” The question is, “How do I want to use my time?”
