Anxiety can be a vicious cycle, and it plays out in our mind, body and behaviours. It appears in our thoughts, which may feel like: “Something bad will happen.” “I won’t be able to cope.” It appears in our feelings and body sensations, including feeling: anxious, adrenalin, tense, heart racing, breathing fast, shaky, lightheaded, sweaty. And it appears in our behaviours — so we avoid the escape, don’t go out, make excuses, or leave early. These safety behaviours help us cope in the situation.
How does anxiety appear in our behaviour?
When we’re feeling anxious, we might engage in the following behaviours:
- Avoiding people or places, not going out
- Only going to certain places at a time
- Only going with someone else
- Escape, leave early
- Using safety behaviours, e.g. avoiding eye contact, drinking more alcohol
Do you recognise these patterns in your moments of anxiety?
Can anxiety be helpful for us?
We all feel anxious at times, and a certain amount of anxiety helps us to be more alert and focused.
However, too much anxiety or constantly being anxious is unhealthy, and detrimental to our lives and relationships.
When we speak about anxiety, it’s important to identify your triggers — awareness can be the most helpful.
Anxiety starts with a trigger. When are the times when you are more likely to get anxious?
Once we identify our triggers, we can learn to do things differently.
If avoiding situations and using safety behaviours helps to maintain our anxiety over the long term, then it makes sense that learning to navigate it and confront it might be uncomfortable in the short term — but it will help us take charge and feel more empowered over time.
Make a plan to gradually do the things you normally avoid.
You can use breathing techniques or encouraging self talk, change your unhelpful thoughts and repeat more realistic thoughts to get through these situations.
Anxiety and adrenaline are not the same, but they are both natural responses that were traditionally helpful.
Anxiety is the body’s way of responding to being in danger.
Adrenaline is rushed into our bloodstream to enable us to run away or fight.
This happens whether the danger is real, or whether we believe the danger is there, when actually there is none.
It is the body’s alarm and survival mechanism. Primitive man wouldn’t have survived for long without this life saving response, it works so well that it often kicks in when it’s not needed.
Anxiety can feel overwhelming, so reach for things that calm the overwhelm.
Even five minutes of meditation, where you clear your mind of thoughts and focus on deep breathing, can work wonders for a racing mind.
Breath work can be beneficial when dealing with anxiety.
When we speak about how to deal with the physical sensations of anxiety, it’s important to practise calming and mindful breathing.
This one act alone will help reduce the physical sensations, emotions and intensity of thoughts.
Redirect your mind and body to alleviate anxiety.
We could start by visualising breathing in blue for calm, breathing out red for stress and anxiety.
We could exercise, go for a walk, run or cycle, or do some gardening or homework.
Daily practises that help reduce anxiety:
Yoga: The body, mind and breath relationship is translated through a beautiful and timeless practise that includes body postures, breathing techniques and mediation. When these elements come into alignment and harmony, that is Yoga.
Meditation: Meditation and mindfulness practises allow for people to connect and understand themselves and each other at a more compassionate level.
Mindfulness: Bringing a mindful movement practise to live all elements of our being to our core on a soul level, allowing for deeper moments of connection with self, with family and with source.
Anxiety is natural, so don’t feel ashamed.
When the danger is in our heads, rather than in reality, we naturally think we’re in danger and in turn that’s enough to trigger the system.
People who get anxious tend to get into scanning mode, where they’re constantly on the lookout for danger and hyper alert to any of the signals.
This makes it more likely that the alarm system will be activated when we are feeling anxious — and our thoughts that often occur relate to our overestimating or over exaggerating the actual threat and underestimating or minimising our ability to cope.
Here are some simple steps, what to focus on when you are feeling anxious:
- Stop
- Pause
- Take a breath, don’t react automatically.
- Then ask yourself… What am I reacting to? What is it that I think is going to happen here? What’s the worst and best thing that could happen? What’s most likely to happen? How important is this really? How important will this be in six months time? Am I overestimating the danger? Am I underestimating my ability to cope? Am I putting more pressure on myself?
These are just a few questions to ask yourself in that moment to release that pressure of feeling anxious.
Can avoiding a positive behaviour reduce anxiety?
Whilst avoiding people or situations might help you feel better at the time, it doesn’t make your anxiety any better over a longer period.
If you’re frightened that your anxiety will make you pass out or vomit in the supermarket aisle, you won’t find out that it actually won’t happen, because you didn’t go.
So the belief that it will happen remains, along with the anxiety. It doesn’t have to be like this — it is possible to navigate anxiety with ease.
Navigating anxiety with ease starts with acceptance.
There is nothing wrong with you, and nothing to be ashamed about; you simply have certain behaviours and thoughts to figure out how to navigate in a way that serves you best.
What feels so heavy, scary and unknown right now can turn into something so beautiful — and when you look back, you’ll be thankful for this period of transformation, even if, at times, it was uncomfortable or nerve-wracking. Push through to reach the other side.
Today, do one more thing than yesterday — one more thing that helps you feel calm, grounded, connected and at peace.
Eventually, these little routines will become unshakeable rituals that bring overall tranquillity to your life.
