What is anxiety coaching? 

You’re in the right place. Today, you’ll learn how to become an anxiety coach and build an impactful and abundant business. 

Want to learn more? Let’s dive right in! 

How can coaching help with anxiety? 

Anxiety coaches provide personalized help to clients looking to manage anxiety and prolonged feelings of stress. This typically includes identifying anxiety symptoms and triggers, developing coping techniques, and creating goals to track progress. 

Through one-on-one support, clients can for example:

• Gain confidence and control over their emotions.  
• Improve their relationships by better expressing feelings and needs. 
• Face challenges at work more easily.  

One National Library of Medicine study showed that people can experience a decrease in anxiety after just a week of coaching. But the minimum number of sessions is usually six.

What’s the difference between anxiety coaching and therapy?

The main difference between anxiety coaching and therapy is the type of services each  provides. Therapists are required to have qualifications such as master’s degrees and/or licenses. But you don’t need certification to become an anxiety coach. 

Anxiety coaches are not seen as experts with all the answers. Instead, they are supportive guides who work with their clients to achieve a specific goal. 

Therapy often looks at past experiences and trauma. Coaching is about giving access to mindset shifts and reframes. 

The other main differences between anxiety coaching and therapy are:

Anxiety coaching

• Focus: Anxiety coaching focuses on achieving a specific goal. 
• Length: Typically, coaches work with their clients for a specific amount of time (a few months to a year). 
• Expertise: Anxiety coaches have relevant experience – for example, work experience. 
• Scope: The scope isn’t on mental health but on how to work to achieve your goals with anxiety. 

Therapy 

• Focus: Therapists diagnose and treat people with mental health issues, such as anxiety disorders. 
• Length: Therapy typically takes at least a year, if not longer.  
• Expertise: Therapists must have relevant degrees and licenses. 
• Scope: Therapists focus on specific mental health issues, such as PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, or social anxiety.

Now you know what the difference is between therapy and anxiety coaching. But how do you help your anxiety coaching clients get the best results? 

Here are the top techniques.  

What are the best coaching techniques for anxiety?

There are three main types of anxiety coaching techniques:

• Those that focus on the body (such as relaxation and breath work). 
• Those that target mindset changes.
• Those that involve lifestyle coaching and goal setting. 

Here are three of the most successful strategies when you’re getting started. 

Teaching coping skills

The “window of tolerance” is a psychological term referring to a range of experiences and emotions someone can comfortably experience. People with a small window of tolerance will feel high levels of anxiety and stress.

By teaching coping techniques, you can expand this window. This might look like:

• Supporting clients to avoid drugs or alcohol
• Creating exercise programs
• Helping clients to develop healthy eating habits
• Supporting clients to improve their sleep hygiene  
• Teaching meditation techniques
• Helping clients strengthen their support networks and communities

Cognitive restructuring 

Cognitive restructuring is used to transform negative thoughts into more positive ones. It involves identifying the thoughts or beliefs behind the unhelpful or untrue thoughts that come up every day. From there, you can help clients replace them.

Consider this example from my own business:

• Thought: I can’t take a break right now. I need to work all night.
• Underlying thought: I need to prove myself. I’m worried people don’t know I can do this.
• Shift: I’m highly experienced at work. I need to prioritize my own well-being too. 

The 3-3-3 technique  

The 3-3-3 is used to reduce anxiety by bringing focus to the present moment. By using three senses (sight, hearing, and touch) people can ground themselves and worry less about the past or future.

Anxiety coaches can train their clients to use this technique by asking them to:

• Identify an item they can see and describe its details, colors, shape, and textures
• Point out what they can hear and consider whether the sounds are distant or close and loud or quiet 
• Move three parts of their body in turn, describing the sensations of movement, pressure, and temperature each time

So, those are the top techniques.

How do you become an anxiety coach, though? 

That’s what we’ll look at next. 

How to become an anxiety coach

How do you find a niche as a coach? 

Get clients? 

…And more. 

Here you’ll learn what you can do to start selling yourself as a coach. Then, in the next section, I explore the types of certification you can look into.

Find an anxiety coaching niche

If there’s one piece of advice most new coaches need to hear, it’s this: Before you do anything else, decide on your niche.

When you choose a specialized section of the market, you can speak directly to people who need you. And, as the number of coaches increases year on year, this helps you stand out.  

Within the field of anxiety coaching, it also gives you more focus. Instead of saying “I help people manage their anxiety,” you could say something like “I help busy female entrepreneurs manage their work stress.”

This immediately allows you to hone in on the specific challenges they face in your marketing and programs. 

A few more examples of niche audiences in the anxiety coaching market include:

• People in corporate jobs who want to get better job opportunities but are limited by anxiety
• People working in creative industries who struggle with self-doubt
• Young men who want to overcome anxiety 

 The point is to find a group that is both profitable and in line with your experience. When picking a niche, you should ask yourself: 

• What cause am I passionate about? 
• Where is most of my experience?
• What are my specific strengths? 

If you’re stuck for time, check out this video to help you find a profitable niche in just one sentence:  

Get certified 

You generally don’t need certification to become a coach. And, with the right experience, the same is true for anxiety coaching. 

If you have active listening skills, a positive approach, and you know how to help clients get results, it’s enough to start. You’ll learn coaching skills best by working directly with people. 

However, there are specific niches that do require a certification, typically in the health/mental health space. So make sure you’re aware of any specific regulations that apply to your niche. 

What’s more, if you decide to become a certified anxiety coach, choose an accredited organization like the International Coaching Federation (ICF). The coaching certification industry is unregulated, but by choosing a certification that’s approved by ICF, which is a credible organization, the certification will meet certain standards. 

Create a coaching package 

How do you create coaching packages that help you attract higher-paying clients?

The value of your coaching isn’t in the number of coaching sessions you offer or the number of strategies you cover. It’s about the transformation you make happen… And your ideal clients are willing to pay a lot for support for overcoming anxiety. 

For this reason, I recommend pricing per package and deciding package length based on how long it takes clients to see results. Your target audience won’t care about how long you spend helping them as long as you support them through their transformation. 

A three-month coaching package is usually a great place to start. This is because it’s not too much commitment for new clients, but it’s enough time to help them see a real change. 

You can also play around with package pricing. I recommend a starting rate of $1,500 paid in full and $550 paid month-by-month. But you can adjust this up and down as you get more clients. 

Once you’ve decided on the length and pricing of your coaching package, you need to break it up into actionable steps. Each of these should clearly push your clients toward achieving their goals.

Get anxiety coaching clients

The next step is to sell your coaching package.

For that, you need coaching clients. How do you find them, though? 

There are a few places:

• Your network: Reach out to people in your network to see if they or someone they know needs anxiety coaching. 
• Social media: Build relationships and engage with people on social media platforms like Reddit or TikTok. But, focus on one platform where your clients are most likely to hang out and master that one before you move on to the next one.   
• Podcasts: Pitch podcast hosts and get interviewed on podcasts. People listening to the podcast already trust the host and after listening to a 30-60-minute interview with you, they’re much more likely to buy from you than someone who randomly finds you.

I talk more about creating your first marketing plan and getting clients here: 

The best anxiety coaching certifications 

You most likely don’t need an anxiety coaching certification, unless you offer certain health coaching services. 

But if you do want a certification, go for an anxiety coach certification program that’s credible. Here are some online recommendations based on their reviews and reputation. (Note that I haven’t enrolled in these programs – my recommendations are purely based on online information.)  

Anxiety Certification Training

PESI accreditation allows you to show that you are up to date with evidence-based anxiety techniques. It also shows that you are aware of being inclusive of different demographics (such as BIPOC communities). You’ll learn tools for supporting clients with anxiety about wider cultural and social issues. This training costs $299.   

Mental Health Coach Training

The iNLP provides accredited mental health coach training which comes with five certifications. You’ll get 10 hours with a coach as well as 40 hours of training sessions while you learn to teach clients to manage their inner critics and find their true selves. Costs start at $2,500.

Professional Anxiety Coach

Online course hub Alison offers free training that certifies you as a professional anxiety coach. You’ll learn how to guide your clients through mindfulness practices, discover strategies for stress management, and find out more about how to get started in the coaching business.  

Next steps

So now you know how to get started with anxiety coaching and become a successful anxiety coach. 

This is a path that can be incredibly rewarding — both financially and personally. While transforming the day-to-day lives of your clients, you can generate a great income and create a business that’s both flexible and affords you more freedom.  

Of course, there’s so much more you can learn about creating and marketing an irresistible offer and finding your segment of the market.

Luckily, I cover more about this in my blueprint on how to start a six-figure coaching business. 

Get the free PDF here. 

Learn more:

How to Start a Coaching Business

How to Become an Empowerment Coach

How to Market Your Coaching Business