By Kelly Hearn*
As a psychotherapist, I work with clients on managing their anxiety. As someone with a highly reactive nervous system, I’ve also had decades of practice managing my own and so have a deep personal connection to this work. While anxiety feels pretty pervasive at the moment, the good news is there is a lot we can do to actively support ourselves in anxious times.
I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to the Movement for Modern Life course on anxiety because it offers practices I know to be effective, and highly complementary to psychotherapy. Increasingly, GPs and therapists are making ‘social prescriptions’ of yoga, meditation and breathwork as the research points to the benefits of these in treating anxiety. In addition to this brief blog, I will be contributing to the MFML course a number of short psycho-education audio recordings with exercises. I will also facilitate a live online workshop ‘Tools to Thrive in an Uncertain World’ on November 9th.
The Age of Anxiety?
We are nearly two years into a global pandemic, the future progression of which is still uncertain. Covid only added to a building list of collective worries: Climate change, racial injustice, political divisiveness, economic inequality, terrorism…. all of which have had their effect on our mental health.
It may feel like we are living in ‘The Age of Anxiety,’ although this was actually the title of a 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning poem by WH Auden. Thousands of years prior, Greek and Latin physicians and philosophers had already identified anxiety as a medical reality. Ancient Epicurean and Stoic philosophers’ work included practices that sound remarkably similar to modern cognitive behavioural psychology. All of this is to say that anxiety isn’t new. It isn’t an aberration. And it isn’t going away. However, anxiety isn’t the problem (she says controversially). It is our relationship to anxiety that needs to change.
Changing Our Relationship with Anxiety
As a culture, we have a tendency to fear anxiety, or to pathologize it. To think it is a character flaw to overcome, or eradicate. Us anxious ones judge ourselves for being too weak, sensitive, or lacking resilience. So now we’re anxious, and also feeling bad about it. Two times the fun. But what if we could see anxiety for what it is: something built into our nervous systems, a part of being human. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, anxiety can also co-exist with some pretty positive traits and even be a catalyst for personal growth if we’re open to it. So rather than fighting anxiety, can we get curious about how we might relate to it differently? Engage openly in ways that bring a bit more ease to our lives, and maybe even some pretty important insights?
In order to do so, we also need to acknowledge the ways we try to avoid anxiety. The more anxious we are, the more we want to distract ourselves from this reality. The automatic reach for a drink, a muffin, Netflix, news or social media-scrolling, yet another work email…something, anything, that will rescue us from any emerging anxious thought, often before we’re even conscious of it. Or the very common ‘manic defence,’ a frenzy of activity separating us from unwelcome feelings.
Unfortunately, the avoidance of painful emotions doesn’t get rid of them. They are merely reduced to a buzz of anxious energy; a low hum we ignore by staying distracted or in motion; a source of intrusions in our sleep; a driver of inexplicable physical ailments; a building tension that can erupt unexpectedly. When we ‘manage’ the symptoms this way, we miss the fact that they can be an excellent source of information; that their appearance is a sign for us to ‘take note, there are some needs that require attention here.’
Confronting the Habit of Worry
So we’re open to looking at our anxiety, noticing and sidestepping avoidance tactics. What next? Many of us try to outsmart anxiety with analysing and strategizing. We believe we are being proactive, trying to think and plan our way out of danger, and so de-risking the situation. While the desire to exert some control is understandable, our attempts are often futile as we try to know the unknowable. Even worse, we can develop a dangerous habit of compulsive worry, needlessly taxing our already overburdened nervous systems. In the words of the Persian poet Hafiz: ‘Now that all your worry has proved such an unlucrative business, why not find a better job?
Understanding our Physiology
To work with anxiety, we first need to understand the effects it has on our body and how we might work constructively with our nervous system. Anxiety is commonly associated with feeling a lack of control, but when we understand how our nervous systems operate, we realise we have more control than we might have appreciated.
Our autonomic nervous system (ANS) has two divisions, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). We can think of these as the gas pedal and breaks, respectively. We are constantly – if unconsciously – scanning for risks and reacting to threats automatically and instantaneously. When triggered, a small area in our brain called the amygdala sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This in turn powers up the sympathetic nervous system, activating our ‘fight or flight’ stress response. In this sense, the SNS is our protector, absolutely necessary and ultimately responsible for our survival.
But our brains are a bit out of date; they haven’t evolved to cope with 21st century technology broadcasting threats 24/7 from every corner of the world. We literally see risks everywhere and our nervous system react to these, igniting a high alert stress response even when our own physical safety isn’t involved. We are bombarded and overwhelmed. No wonder we are an anxious planet.
Deactivating the Stress Response
So the stress response is crucial, and yet chronic activation of this survival mechanism impairs our health. We need to consciously apply the breaks: the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Sometimes called the ‘rest and digest’ system, the PNS helps bring us out of high alert and to restore and conserve energy.
There are numerous ways to activate the PNS, including:
- breathing exercises
- movement (walking and yoga are two excellent ones)
- stretching/relaxing muscles that have tensed up in fight or flight mode
- grounding in the five senses (taking in sights, smells, sounds etc)
- calming touch (massage or self-massage, hugs)
- cold water (perhaps a reason for the wild swimming craze?)
- slow tempo music (‘The Mozart Effect’)
- prayer, meditation, mantras, quiet contemplation
- connection with others – either actual or visualised
Only once we’ve regulated our nervous system are we ready to move to the next phase of working with anxiety.
Building Awareness
Anxiety can have an important information for us if we engage with it skilfully (a big ‘if’!) Often, we instead fuel it by using words that are catastrophic rather than cautious. And by letting our inner critic run wild with the myriad ways we are ill-prepared. Beware of both pitfalls. As a wise mentor once said to me: ‘Be careful what you say to yourself – remember you are listening.’
The tools of cognitive behavioural therapy can be useful in building awareness around the negative scripts our brains generate, and in challenging these damaging beliefs. I’ll be introducing some exercises to work with these beliefs in the course audios, because often our thoughts only serve to propel the anxiety loop. If we can step out of this, we can look for the valuable insights anxiety may bring such as:
This matters. I recall an actor friend telling me that he gets the same nervous energy others call ‘stage fright’ before the curtains open, it’s just that he views the physical symptoms differently. He sees them as generating the energy he needs to perform, to give his all to a role. Take a moment to recall the physical similarities between what is often labelled anxiety and what could also be called nervous excitement. At times, this energy is present in situations that feel purposeful, of value, and so we are excited. We feel buzzy and alive because this matters.
This needs to change. On the flip side, anxiety can alert us that something in our lives isn’t working any more. There are numerous examples from my client work where an individual arrives with anxiety and when we dig below the surface, there is a pretty clear issue just waiting for attention. A relationship, a job, a way of being in the world that feels out of sync with who they want to be. Anxiety provides the energy to start the process of exploring change, an uncomfortable kick in the rear to get the wheels in motion.
Time to pause. Often, anxiety brings the reminder that we need to slow down, pause, rest. We are a productivity-obsessed culture frequently operating on autopilot. If we don’t course-correct at times, we can end up in burnout, or so far away from ourselves we don’t know whose life we are living. We may intuitively know this but do nothing to change it. Keep calm and carry on. Anxiety can become so uncomfortable it forces us to stop. And in the stillness comes the chance to reconnect with ourselves, an opportunity to build self-awareness. Thank you, anxiety.
Exploring Further in Psychotherapy
There is a lot we can do to manage our anxiety on our own but psychotherapy provides an additional support, to understand where in our personal history anxiety stems from. German psychoanalyst Karen Horney coined the term ‘basic anxiety’ for the feeling a child has of being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile world. Horney went on to highlight a wide range of adverse factors that can produce this insecurity in a child; insecurities the child then carries with her into adulthood.
Psychotherapy helps us revisit some of these earlier experiences. We realise there is a very understandable reason our bodies learned to be on high alert, and so to have more self-compassion. It allows us to separate out the past from the present and to acknowledge that our conditions have changed. We understand that we have far more knowledge, agency and choice than we ever did as little people confined to our family of origin, home and norms. It allows us to get clarity ‘that was then, this is now.’
The therapy room also gives time and space to acknowledge the many emotions that arise from our earlier experience with fresh eyes. We can allow the sadness or anger or whatever arises to move through. This is important so they don’t remain buried alive, tripping us up in the present.
No Silver Bullet
Anxiety appears for a confluence of reasons: physical, psychological, societal. Accordingly, there is no one ‘silver bullet’ for alleviating the uncomfortable symptoms. But by working compassionately with our bodies, our thoughts, our personal and cultural histories, we can tame what at times may feel like an unruly beast. Get to a place of greater self-awareness and acceptance. Understand we can’t control what comes, but develop the confidence that we have the ability to weather even the most turbulent, uncertain times.
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Join Kelly Hearn for a workshop on November 9th at 7pm to continue exploring the topic of working constructively with anxiety. Link here for more information or to sign up.
*This article was written for and originally appeared on the Movement for Modern Life website. www.movementformodernlife.com
