Understanding Anxiety: Effective Strategies for Managing and Overcoming

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a normal part of the human biology. It helps us to anticipate when we may be in danger and helps us to keep ourselves safe from quick responses. It is an unconscious neuro-biological reaction to how we perceive the world.

 From an evolutionary perspective our brains were required to develop in a way which alerted us to danger e.g. fight, flight or freeze response (our brains release hormones and chemicals that prepare us to run or fight or freeze to stay safe).

However we now live in a modern world where realistically we are in much less mortal danger, but our brains continue to have the same responses of in relation to everyday experiences which are not life threatening. This can leave us in a state of anxiety and panic which feels out of proportion but it difficult to control.

What can anxiety look and feel like?

Physiologically when anxious our bodies have an excess of adrenaline and stress hormone cortisol. This helps us prepare to fight or flee, but in most everyday situations these responses are not required (e.g. feeling anxious about the first day at a new job).

We may experience heart palpitations, have excess sweat, tremor, experience racing thoughts or brain fog and experience bursts of energy.

In our behaviour this can appear in different ways dependent on how we generally respond to anxiety based on previous experiences:

-       ‘Freeze response’ – take to your bed, feel unable to doing anything, only unable to engage in sedentary activities, feel the pull to be still and not move, the thought of completing tasks might feel impossible

-       ‘Fight response’ – Feel dysregulated, explosive display of emotions, ratty or argumentative with others, loosing temper, need to hit out, throw, kick etc (can be at objects not necessarily people) This type of response can often be viewed as an anger problem rather than an anxiety problem

-       ‘Flight response’ – Avoidance, this is not just avoidance of tasks, but avoidance of anxious thoughts. The person may actively avoid the task or situation that makes them anxious but may also use being constantly busy as a way to avoid anxious thoughts. People with this type of response to anxiety can often appear burnt out and find it difficult to know how to relax or soothe themselves.

What can help?

Deep breathing exercises – 4 – 7 - 5 technique, breath in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and release breath for 5 seconds.

Exercise – Regular exercise to release pent up adrenaline and energy, this can be gentle exercise, but it is important to incorporate routinely into your day

Challenging thoughts – noticing your anxious thoughts and using gentle challenges to help to rationalise them

Separating your anxiety from you – Thinking about your anxiety as an entity separate to yourself. Giving your anxiety a face, or even a name, may help you to reject what your anxiety is telling you, or how it is making you feel.

Affirmations – repeating affirmations when noticing feelings of anxiety which counteract your fears e.g. “others like me” “I am successful”

Lean into your anxiety – Experimenting in trying tasks which you are anxious of. This may be by imagining a scenario which would make you feel anxious and gradually building towards trying activities you would usually avoid in real life.

Sandwiching tasks – if you know you must do something which you feel anxious about you can sandwich it in between tasks which soothe you e.g. have a bath (soothing task) – visit the supermarket (anxiety provoking task) – go for a walk in nature (soothing task)

If you would like to work on your anxiety, you can email me at hello@hlcounselling.co.uk or fill in my contact form