How do I know if my anxiety is “bad enough” for therapy?

If anxiety is affecting your sleep, relationships, confidence, health, work, or ability to live the way you want, it’s enough. You don’t need to wait for crisis.

Can anxiety cause physical symptoms?

Yes. Anxiety can create very real physical sensations, and fear of those sensations can intensify them. Therapy helps you understand the cycle and reduce the fear response.

What’s the difference between stress and anxiety?

Stress is often linked to an identifiable pressure and may ease when the pressure reduces. Anxiety can continue even when life looks fine because the threat system has learned to stay on alert, especially around uncertainty.

Does CBT work for anxiety?

CBT is one of the most established approaches for anxiety, especially when it targets the maintaining cycle (avoidance, checking, reassurance, rumination). We also integrate ACT and compassion-focused work where that better fits your needs.

I’ve tried therapy before and it didn’t help. What now?

That happens. Often it’s because the therapy wasn’t targeted to what maintained the anxiety. We take a structured approach so the work is specific, practical, and reviewed.

Can you help with panic attacks?

Yes. Panic can feel frightening, but it is highly treatable. Therapy focuses on understanding the panic cycle, reducing fear of bodily sensations, and rebuilding confidence.

How do I stop overthinking?

Overthinking is often an attempt to create certainty or prevent regret. Therapy helps you reduce mental checking, increase tolerance of uncertainty, and move attention back into the life you want to live.

Anxiety Therapy

Anxiety can feel like your mind won’t switch off. You might look as though you’re managing, but internally you’re bracing for something to go wrong. For some people it’s constant “what if” thinking. For others it’s physical: tight chest, nausea, dizziness, racing heart, or a sense of being on edge.

A certain amount of anxiety is part of being human. It’s your threat system trying to protect you. The problem is when that system becomes oversensitive and starts shaping your choices, shrinking your world, and draining your energy.

At Hampstead Psychology, we offer evidence-based therapy for anxiety in London and online across the UK. We help you understand what’s maintaining your anxiety and build a practical, compassionate route forward.

This page is for information and does not replace a clinical assessment, diagnosis, or medical advice.

When Anxiety starts to take over

You might recognise some of these experiences:

Your mind runs ahead to worst-case scenarios and won’t settle.
You overthink conversations, decisions, or future events and replay them afterwards.
You feel tense, on edge, or “keyed up” even when life looks fine on paper.
You avoid situations because they feel too risky, awkward, or overwhelming.
You seek reassurance, check things repeatedly, or google symptoms to feel safe.
You notice frightening physical sensations and worry they mean something serious.
Sleep is disrupted because worry gets louder at night.
You push yourself hard to feel in control, but you’re exhausted underneath.
You feel stuck between wanting certainty and knowing certainty is impossible.
You tell yourself you “should” cope better, and the self-criticism adds pressure.

If this sounds familiar, it doesn’t mean you’re weak. It often means your mind has learned that uncertainty equals danger. Therapy helps retrain that pattern so you can feel safer in your life again.

How Anxiety can show up

Persistent worry and overthinking

For many people, anxiety shows up as mental looping: planning, predicting, analysing, trying to find the “right” answer. It can feel productive, but it often keeps the nervous system activated and makes uncertainty feel unbearable.

Physical anxiety and panic-style symptoms

Anxiety can create strong physical sensations — breathlessness, chest tightness, dizziness, nausea, trembling, heat, numbness. When these sensations feel frightening, a fear-of-fear cycle can develop, where the body becomes something you monitor rather than trust.

Avoidance and safety behaviours

Avoidance is understandable: it gives relief. But over time it teaches the brain that the situation really was dangerous. Safety behaviours can do the same thing — over-preparing, checking, reassurance seeking, always having an exit plan — they reduce anxiety short-term but keep the threat system sensitive.

Anxiety that hides behind functioning

Some people don’t look anxious at all. They cope by staying busy, striving, pleasing, controlling, or never switching off. The cost often appears later as burnout, irritability, sleep problems, and a sense of living with constant pressure.

Man taking notes on the couch in office._edited.png

Related difficulties we often see alongside anxiety

Anxiety often overlaps with low mood, stress and burnout, insomnia, self-criticism, perfectionism, relationship strain, and health-related worry. Sometimes these are separate difficulties; sometimes they’re knock-on effects of living under sustained threat. Therapy considers the whole picture while keeping the work focused and practical.

What keeps anxiety going?

Anxiety is often maintained by a loop that makes perfect sense in the moment.

A trigger shows up (a thought, sensation, situation, memory).
Your mind tries to solve it through worry, checking, reassurance, or avoidance.
You feel short-term relief.
But the brain learns, “Good thing we did that — it must have been dangerous.”
So the threat system becomes more sensitive next time.

Therapy helps you step out of this loop in a way that feels safe, structured, and sustainable.

How therapy for anxiety helps

At Hampstead Psychology, we use approaches that are widely used in evidence-based psychological practice. Depending on your needs, this may include CBT, ACT, compassion-focused work, and schema-informed therapy.

In practice, therapy often involves understanding your specific anxiety pattern, reducing the behaviours that keep it going (like avoidance and reassurance loops), and learning a different relationship with anxious thoughts and sensations. We also work carefully with self-criticism and the internal pressure that can keep anxiety switched on.

The aim isn’t to eliminate all anxiety. The aim is to change your relationship with it, so it no longer runs your life.

What to expect from sessions

We start by understanding your anxiety in context: when it flares, what triggers it, what you do next, and what impact it has on your life and relationships. From there, we build a shared map and a clear direction for therapy.

Sessions are collaborative and active. You’ll come away with insight that feels usable, and practical steps to try between sessions, reviewed and refined over time.

How long does therapy take?

This varies. Some people benefit from focused work on a specific anxiety pattern, such as panic symptoms, health worry, social anxiety, or chronic overthinking. Others need longer, especially when anxiety has been present for years or is tied to longstanding self-criticism, perfectionism, or trauma-related stress.

We review progress together so therapy stays purposeful and aligned with your goals.

Anxiety therapy in London and online

We offer anxiety therapy in person in London and online across the UK. Many people choose online sessions for convenience and flexibility, and it can be just as effective for many anxiety presentations.

Take the next step

If anxiety has been shaping your life through worry, avoidance, physical fear, or constant pressure, you don’t have to keep managing it alone. With the right support, anxiety can become something you understand and respond to differently — and life can start to feel bigger again.

Contact Hampstead Psychology to enquire about anxiety therapy in London or online.

Useful links: Panic Attacks, Health Anxiety, Stress and Burnout, Insomnia and Sleep Problems, Fees, Meet the Team, Contact.

Urgent Help

If you are worried about immediate risk to your safety, call 999 or go to A&E. If you need urgent support but it isn’t an emergency, contact NHS 111 or your GP. You can also contact Samaritans on 116 123 (24/7).

Meet The Team

At Hampstead Psychology, all of our psychologists have extensive training to doctoral level and decades of experience in their field of expertise. You will be matched with a psychologist that has the knowledge and skill to help you understand and overcome your problem - not just in the short term but for good.