Don’t let asthma and anxiety become friends. They’re a bad influence on each other. Resolved! Counselling for Children could help your son or daughter to bring their anxiety under control
I never had particularly bad asthma as a child but I do remember putting those little capsules into my 1970s inhaler. I can still, forty years later, hear the whizzing sound it made and taste the taste of the powder as I inhaled it. I can remember being short of breath and the anxiety when it came. If your son or daughter lives in or around Oxford or Thame then perhaps I could help them.
I also offer counselling and psychotherapy for asthma online, using whatsapp or zoom. Please get in touch for details.
Anxiety, stress and asthma often come hand in hand. Read some more on this research, here. For most of us breathing is so effortless that we barely ever notice we’re doing it. It often surprises my clients when I bring them to a realisation of what’s involved in taking a single breath, as a part of mindfulness training.
People who have trouble breathing, however, know precisely how precious every breath can be and find it a fearful thing to have to think about every single one of them. As the video explains, anxiety becomes self-perpetuating, rendering asthma flare ups more likely and then worse when they happen.
It also affects children in other ways. We live in an age in which children mostly know that they can rely on their own bodies. To be young is to be healthy for most of them, most of the time. Asthma can leave children with less confidence in their general physical abilities.
The more anxious people become about their asthma the worse it becomes. It grows into being a nasty little vicious circle, seemingly without any way out.
There is a way out. I have worked with asthmatics in Reading, Oxford and online. I have helped them to reverse that circle, reducing general life-stress, helping them to establish control over asthma-related anxiety and so enabling them to live their lives more happily.
If you have a child, in Reading, Oxford or elsewhere, who is having a hard time adjusting to their asthma, perhaps Resolved! Counselling for Children could be of service. It only takes a ‘phone call to find out. Call me on 07786123736 or email me at paul@resolvedcounsellingforchildren.com
Asthma rarely seems that serious because there’s so much of it about.
Over 5 million people in the UK suffer from asthma to a greater or lesser extent. Many people under-estimate how serious it can be, simply seeing it in a friend when that friend is feeling a bit wheezy and takes a pull or two upon their inhaler.
Well, it may seem trivial to some people but to others it’s a matter of life and death. Every single day sees three people die because of a severe asthma attack. 185 people are admitted to hospital as a result of an asthma attack. A severe asthma attack takes place every ten seconds and so you can see why the condition deserves rather more respect than it typically receives.
Be free of stress and anxiety and asthma loses some of its sting
If you find yourself monitoring every single aspect of your breathing then you are making an asthma attack more likely. If you’re suffering from stress and anxiety unrelated to asthma then, again, you’re just making it worse.
If you already know this and then become stressed and anxious about the fact that you’re feeling stressed and anxious then you’re simply entering into a spiral of fear which can only have a negative impact upon any stress-related condition.
I help my clients to establish better habits with regard to stress, anxiety and asthma. I teach them that they don’t have to spend the rest of their lives monitoring their breathing. They can learn to adjust their focus, to enjoy their life and even to forget that they live with this condition at all.
Get in touch and we’ll talk of how Resolved! Counselling for Children could help your child to be freer from fear.
Therapy in Reading, Oxford and online
Asthma can’t be cured, at least not yet, and I make no promise that I can do so. Reducing the stress and anxiety which asthma induces can, however, lead to a reduction in symptoms and a greater enjoyment of life. If you’d like that for your child then get in touch. I’ll be glad to talk.
Call me on 07786 123736 email me at paul@resolvedcounsellingforchildren.com or simply use the form below, at the bottom of this page. I look forward to hearing from you.