Anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety is your body and mind’s natural response to stress. It is a feeling of apprehension or fear about what might happen but when the feeling is extreme, and lasting over six months, it can be debilitating and soul destroying, however, the great news is that most people are able to find a way to manage it to such a level that they can be fully engaged in life.  Therapy can be extremely beneficial in assisting people to achieve this in their lives, which can be truly life changing.  

Therapy helps you understand your body’s responses and how your mind and your body interact to create feelings of anxiety.  Therapy further teaches and assists with what can be done to help subdue those anxious, and often overwhelming, feelings.  

Firstly, it is important to keep in mind that there is no such thing as a life lived without anxiety.  Actually, anxiety can be helpful in warning us when we are in dangerous or unpleasant situations.  It was particularly important for our ancestors to have that feeling of anxiety run through their bodies to warn them when they were approaching a saber tooth tiger and for their minds to keep reminding them of where that saber tooth tiger was.  Interestingly enough, despite the advances that humans have made since prehistoric times, the human brain has been very slow to evolve.  Although our brain size has increased, we are still walking around with the same hardware as our Paleolithic ancestors.   

We used to live in, what scientists call, an “Immediate Return Environment” much the same way that most animals continue to live in – this is because our actions instantly deliver clear and immediate consequences and outcomes.  However, we have now moved to a “Delayed Return Environment” meaning that most of the choices we make in society today will neither benefit nor affect you immediately but can have huge repercussions in your future. 

This is true of your problems as well.  How we differ from animals is their need for survival is about the effect that the immediate future has on them (eg:  are there any predators around, do I have food and shelter) but with us we may worry about many things that are way off in the future and, as well, may never happen.  Unfortunately, living in a Delayed Return Environment tends to lead to anxiety and at times chronic stress – simply because our brains were never designed to solve problems in a Delayed Return Environment.

This offers an explanation of why we so commonly suffer from anxiety and chronic stress but what can we do about it?

It is ironic that what can cause us the most worry in life is uncertainty and we live with uncertainty every day of our lives.  There are many things that we can do, in different areas of our lives, to lessen the degree of the uncertainty – where actions that we can take lessen any negative consequences that can occur (eg: driving safely and obeying road rules greatly lessen our chances of hurting others and ourselves by causing an accident).  Then there are many principles in life that follow cause and effect and we can manage some anxiety by following those principles but for some people, where anxiety has taken over their lives, the anxiety makes them start to believe that everything will go terribly wrong rather than everything could go completely right – as often in life it does.  The thoughts stop being logical and the mind and the body get into a negative feedback loop that is hard for people to escape on their own.  This is where therapy can be extremely helpful.  It allows you to step into a safe and nurturing environment where you learn how this feedback loop works and how to step back from getting hooked into it.  

With therapy you will learn how not to struggle with anxiety but rather how to make peace with it.  When this occurs your body will no longer feel like it is in constant fight or flight mode.  All those chemicals, which the body produces when it is fight or flight, start to retreat.  Further, as you become more aware of your anxiety inducing thoughts and how they have an immediate impact on your body chemicals and responses, you can start to find your way out of the negative feedback loop quicker.  This, in turn, can help to stop panic attacks which you may be aware are a particularly unpleasant feeling to have.

In conclusion, the good news is that anxiety (in most cases) is treatable and you can go on to live a peaceful life.  Perhaps not totally free of anxiety, as usually everyone has some anxiety in their lives, but instead are no longer debilitated by it having learned the skills and armed with the knowledge to enable you to manage anxiety when, and if, it does occur.  

Ref: Clear, J (2020). Behavioural Psychology, Stress Management, The Evolution of anxiety: why we worry and what to do about it.