Breaking Down Anxiety: Demystifying the Invisible Struggle
It’s likely that you or someone close to you lives with anxiety and even though anxiety is so ubiquitous now-a-days, very few of us have a real grasp on what it actually is and what it really means to live day-in and day-out with anxiety.
That’s where we come in. We are here to break down what anxiety actually is so you can have a better sense of what may be going on for you or those you care about.
When someone says “I have anxiety” they are likely experiencing the following symptoms:
Chronic worry or “overthinking”, living life “in your head”
Repetitive, cyclical or racing thoughts that are intrusive i.e. you’re not trying to think about those things, they just come in
Regularly feeling restless or on edge in your body
Difficulty concentrating, difficulty being and feeling present most of the time
Chronic muscle tension (typically shoulders, neck, jaw, temples, legs & hips)
Chronic fatigue or feeling tired more often than not
Irritability, often feeling annoyed
Difficulty sleeping - falling asleep and/or staying asleep
Avoidance of certain situations or activities
Panic attacks (sudden onset of instear fear or discomfort - can manifest physically, mentally or both)
Oooof! Let’s take a moment to acknowledge how anxiety makes living and functioning incredibly exhausting and difficult. Let’s move forward with compassion in our hearts for ourselves and those we care about who are living with anxiety.
Even though you may hate your anxiety, the emotion of anxiety does have a purpose. Anxiety exists on the fear spectrum with terror on one end and slightly nervous on the other end. Essentially, anxiety is your body’s alarm system. Its job is to alert you to potential threats in your internal and external environments just like a smoke alarm warns you of a potential fire.
Anxiety does it’s job by triggering a cascade of physiological reactions in the body like releasing adrenaline and cortisol, increasing your heart rate and breathing, tensing your muscles, heightening your alertness, dilating your pupils…all in the name of preparing you to survive the perceived threats.
Sounds delightful, right? Just kidding. We know personally and professionally that living with anxiety is frustrating, exhausting and painful. We also understand that those living with anxiety rarely feel truly seen in their struggle by loved ones and society due to the phenomenon of “normalization”.
Normalization occurs when something becomes so common that it is no longer perceived as noteworthy or deserving of attention. Which, in our opinion, is bullshit. Just because so many of us are now living with anxiety, it doesn’t mean that living with anxiety has suddenly gotten easy or that it’s not deserving of attention and care.
You might be wondering, well if my anxiety is “doing it’s job” then what? Do I just have to accept this way of life?
No, you do not! You deserve so much more than a small, anxious existence.
What tends to happen with chronic anxiety, or, anxiety disorders is the autonomic nervous system gets stuck in “alarm mode” and it’s sending alarm signals for almost everything and anything vs. truly dangerous situations.
While we need the emotion of fear or anxiety to survive, we don’t need to be experiencing partial or full blown stress responses when the situation isn’t life or death. It is possible to retrain our inner systems to dial back the level at which they are responding to day-to-day stressors so that we can feel more clear, present and settled in our lives.
Clear, present and settled…sounds good huh? Stay tuned here on Brave Embodiment’s blog for 5 steps to reducing & healing your anxiety and to see why somatic therapy is particularly effective for anxiety.
Ready to better understand and heal from anxiety? Connect with us for a consultation at info@bravecounseling.com or 720-923-3033.