Living with Anxiety
There are so many articulate stories, podcasts, videos, docuseries about anxiety now so I’m just going lightly here and talking about the things that have stood out to me.
What is anxiety
Everyone has this amazing part of the brain called the amygdala, which is home to your Fight and Flight system. Back in the caveman days it’s what triggered when you saw a threat, like a saber tooth tiger in the wild. But our lives now have obviously changed and this can get triggered by things that aren’t actually physically dangerous, but we perceive as a threat on some level to our body or mind.
So when we perceive a threat our bodies trigger a chain reaction of events.
Thoughts are as natural and automatic as breathing. If you think about breathing as an example you can do it unconsciously or you focus on it and interrupt it’s pattern.
This is the same with thoughts. You can let your mind run, day dream, cycle through 20 different topics in a minute. It’s just automatic! But we can also interrupt to focus, concentrate or create thoughts.
Things to help interrupt fight or flight
Try to notice the thought without judgement - practice this when you’re not in fight or flight so it’s can become a habit
Practice thought defusion - observe the thought, ask yourself “Is this helping me live right now”
Do you need to do something right now?
If you’ve got past this point and your adrenaline has started to pump, you breathing has started to change, your muscles are tense and or your heart rate has increased here is a hack to get your body from Fight and Flight to survival mode.
Mammalian Dive Reflex - Survival mode
Imagine yourself in the middle of the ocean and the water is cold. What happens to your body? It tries to save your life by pumping all your blood back to your heart, away from your limbs, your heart rate and breathing slows to conserve energy. This is the mammalian dive reflex.
When you’re in fight or flight you can use cold temperatures to switch your body to survival mode by putting ice or cold water on your face, or across your body.
A bucket of ice is not typically readily available so I run to the freezer and hold my breath for 20-30 seconds and put a bag of cold peas on across my nose and mouth. This is because this is where your vagus nerve is closest to your skin. You could also try keeping a face cloth in the freezer and run it under cold water then place it over your face.
You can also try (and I have done this) jumping in the show and turning the water to cold. I’ll admit it’s not super pleasant BUT it works!
Things to make living with anxiety easier
For so many of us anxiety is apart of our daily life. Here are the thing I’ve come across that can help.
Daily Exercise - Getting 20-30 minutes of daily exercise with your heart rate slightly elevated can reduce your anxiety. You can get creative with this - park your car further away from the office, take the stairs instead of the elevator, get up 20 minutes earlier…
Sunshine and being in nature - Being in nature and getting a good dose of Vitamin D from the sunshine can help regulate your hormones and bring you into harmony with mother nature.
Nutrition - What you eat fuels your body and becomes apart of you. The immediate quick fixes are reduce processed sugar and caffeine. These amp up and dysregulate your system.
Sleep - Sleep is SO important, without it life can get very difficult. They use sleep deprivation as a form of torture, that in itself tells you a lot. Everything from the moment you open your eyes to the moment you get into bed can impact your sleep. Practising great sleep hygiene can make remarkable differences.
Medication - For some people, including myself at various stages, taking an anti anxiety med is helpful. I think it’s important to note though that this isn’t a cure, you still need to do the work to change your thought processes and look after your body.
Acknowledgment - Some times are overwhelming and it is what it is. Being kind to yourself and acknowledging that some moments are hard, or shit can help you let go of your anxiety. My son gets super anxious around exam times and can get thrown off track is something unexpected comes up. So we worked on a mantra to help. “Unexpected things may happen today, but that’s OK. I back myself to figure it out”. And this simple acknowledgement and rewiring helped him get through his exams.
Check out T.I.P - There are some physical exercises or actions you can take to interrupt your anxiety. I’ve written a bit more about T.I.P because I’ve found it so helpful.
So hopefully something here helps! Just take it one moment at a time. Try something for a week or two and see how you respond.
Anxiety disorders are real, but they can be managed.