Stepping Back from Anxiety
Anxiety.
When anxiety takes control, it can feel like there is nothing else in the world. It manifests in very personal ways, from a racing heart to our deepest fears. We may worry about the worst outcome or experience discomfort in our muscles or stomach. Whether anxiety manifests in large or small ways, there are many tools to help keep it from hijacking our lives.
Why is anxiety so common? As humans, anxiety served an essential function for our ancestors. If walking through the woods or jungle, having a little extra adrenaline available to run from a bear, tiger, or unfriendly human would be very helpful. Anxiety about social situations would also have helped our ancestors avoid actions that would get them kicked out of the safety of the group or village that provided access to food and shelter. Individuals who didn’t have some anxiety likely did not do well in our human past.
Anxiety has served a useful purpose in survival. Our minds are wired to look for danger.
In modern times, most of us don’t have to worry often about bears or being banished to the woods. However, our bodies have inherited the anxiety characteristics that helped our ancestors survive. In a sense, our minds are primed to look for danger. Unlike an encounter with a bear, however, modern threats are rarely confined to discrete, concrete threats. Worries are often more abstract or continuous, such as about finances or job performance. In a sense, the modern equivalent of the bear threat doesn’t leave us alone very long.
Whether the dangers we face are as solid as a bear or as abstract as living up to societal or individual standards, we can learn techniques to deal with anxiety so that it doesn’t have control. There are many therapies that offer different approaches, and your therapist or psychiatrist can guide you on what specific treatment fits your needs best. Here is an example that can help create some mental and emotional space.
Take about five minutes (or more) and really observe, in a gentle, non-judgmental way, what is around you. Bring your attention to whatever is right there. Notice what you can encounter with your senses—what you can touch, see, hear, taste, and smell.
Noticing the feeling of the chair or couch beneath you, the texture of the armrest, or the feeling of the floor beneath your feet, can be a great way to start. You may hear the chirp of birds or cars going by outside. You may notice a picture on the wall, the pattern of a rug, or the tree outside your window. Some patients find it very helpful to notice how it feels to press their feet into the floor, shrug their shoulders, or do other gentle stretches.
Taking a little time to practice techniques like this helps many patients feel more engaged with what is going on around them. When we can “step back” from the maze of anxious thoughts or feelings, we can better assess what options we have in life. We can decide what we, not our anxiety, would like to prioritize. Anxious thoughts and feelings don’t have to have control.
A therapist or psychiatrist that does psychotherapy (“talk therapy”) can help guide you through further steps in working with your anxiety. Read more about talk therapy here. Other interventions, such as exercise, good nutrition, managing underlying medical conditions, and limiting caffeine, can be important supports in reducing anxiety symptoms. There are situations where medication may be used to help patients begin to work with their anxiety in therapy or manage anxiety-related symptoms. Examples include medications that work on key neurotransmitters that are involved with our mood and the flight-or-fight response. In most cases, optimal treatment of anxiety includes some form of quality psychotherapy.
