Breaking Down Anxiety
Do you ever find yourself sitting up awake at night replaying every interaction you had that day, searching for something you may have said or done wrong? Maybe you find your thoughts focused more on the next day, planning ahead for every single scenario you may encounter, just in case it comes in handy. Maybe these thoughts keep you from doing things you enjoy or going out of the house at all. Do you find that no matter how much you try to shut down the worry, it persists? If this sounds familiar, you may be struggling with anxiety.
What anxiety does for us
When struggling with anxiety, you may wish to rid yourself of it altogether. But anxiety serves a purpose! Much like our sense of pain tells us to stop touching a hot stove, anxiety can help us to protect ourselves. This may be hard to believe when anxiety is keeping you awake every night, but it’s true!
Humans didn’t always exist alongside the luxuries of modern life. On a long-term biological scale, having a soft bed in a safe house is a new thing for us! Our brains are still catching up to this new reality.
Taking a step back to see how anxiety worked for us before gives us a chance to better understand modern day struggles with anxiety.
In our hunter-gatherer days, humans had daily threats which differ from our modern lives. Without modern medicine, an infection or a broken bone could be lethal.Without appropriate shelter, we risk exposure to the elements, freezing, or being attacked by wild animals. There were no grocery stores, so we had to worry about where our next meal would come from, and if we were even healthy enough to go out and get it. We didn’t have the luxury not to be anxious.Anxiety was on the lookout for threats and kept us safe as a result.
Anxiety functions the same way today! While our daily lives may have changed, we are not free from threats. If you’re fortunate enough to have a roof over your head, you still need to work to keep it. You still need to work to keep a pantry full. And if you live in an unsafe situation, your anxiety will function much as it always has: playing as a look out for threats and keeping you safe.
An Important Note on Anxiety:
Most of this article is about the ways in which our natural sense of anxiety can malfunction at times. However, there are times where anxiety is serving its purpose. If you are feeling anxiety caused by real, tangible threats in your life – If you live in an unsafe home, deal with the risk of violence, suffer from housing or food insecurity, racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. – the anxiety you are feeling is real and I don’t intend to dismiss that. Working on skills for anxiety can help you to cope with your situation but will never replace the impact of getting yourself to a safe space.
Anxiety Malfunctions
If you’ve ever raised a puppy, you’ve probably seen an example of anxiety in action. Dogs learn to differentiate between things that are threats and things that are just part of life. I currently have two dogs: a senior dog, and a puppy. My senior dog has been around long enough to know that microwave beeps and voices on TV are not a threat. Because of his years of experience living with people, he sleeps soundly on the couch as life happens around him. He’s learned which events,like the doorbell, require his attention.
My puppy,however, is still learning how to calibrate his alert system. He perks up when he hears a dog bark on TV, and the microwave beeping never fails to confuse him. He may run to the door when he hears the doorbell, but this is only because he sees his older friend ferociously charging the door first.
Much like us,dogs have attuned their sense of anxiety to life around them. However, dogs can suffer from an anxiety misfire, just like us. Sometimes these misfires make sense. More dogs go missing in the United States around the 4th of July because dogs don’t know fireworks aren’t a threat. Sometimes these misfires are more mysterious. When I was a kid, I had a dog that was terrified of men over six feet tall. It didn’t matter if this person was a friend who came over often, my dog still barked at him every time he moved. This dog spent the entire time my friend was around giving him a skeptical side-eye. Something about tall men triggered his anxiety and told him to stay on guard, even around friends.
For those dealing with social anxiety, feeling on guard around friends might sound familiar! Anxiety doesn’t care that we’re around friends, it only cares that we could get hurt. That’s enough for it to do its work.
Refocusing Anxiety
Through therapy, you can work to address anxiety and reduce – but not eradicate! Anxiety serves a purpose – its impact in your life. There are many ways to go about this, but some of my favorites include:
Moving anxiety outside yourself
At times where we feel particularly impacted by anxiety, it can help to ask: “What is anxiety saying to me?” but that becomes difficult to do when it feels like anxiety is an inherent part of ourselves. One method to work past this is to externalize your anxiety by giving it a persona outside yourself. Doing so allows you to explore the motivations of anxiety as a separate force impacting your life, instead of just an inextricable part of your self.
This is one of those areas where therapy can become fun. Give it a name! Any name you want! Is Bob, the Anxiety Monster popping up again? Let’s talk about Bob. How is the monster making it difficult for you to get up in the morning. What is Bob protecting you from when he makes you scared to hang out with friends? This can be a powerful exercise in reminding you that anxiety is not an inherent part of you, allowing you to better explore its impact on your life.
Take a breath
When Bob, the Anxiety Monster is really acting up he can take over the steering wheel of your nervous system and make your body react accordingly. If Bob is worried that staying at a party will bring physical harm, he’s going to make your pulse quicken, you may begin to sweat. When you recognize this is what Bob wants, and that your desires are not aligned with Bob’s, you can wrestle control of that steering wheel back from Bob.
One way to do this is through a breathing exercise. My favorite is box breathing, which you can do anywhere. To do this, imagine a square:
Follow that square along its edges, five seconds for each edge:
· On the top edge, inhale for five seconds.
· On the side, hold your breath, five seconds.
· On the bottom edge, exhale, five seconds.
· On the other side, hold your breath, five seconds.
Do this as many times as you need until you feel like you’ve gained control of that nervous system, until Bob has gone away.
Are you suffering from anxiety? It’s possible to take control of your life out of anxiety’s hands. Therapy can help!All you need to do is reach out to get started: reach out today!