Stress and Anxiety – natural processes that can get out of hand

Anxiety, it is important to remember, is a very natural part of being human. We all experience anxiety in one form or another probably more than we’d like to admit. It is a stress response involving both physical sensations in the body and emotions such as fear, worry and apprehension.

Paradoxically, stress and anxiety are there to keep you safe. Hundreds of thousands of years ago our brains developed in such a way so as if we burnt ourselves in the fire or fell down a rocky mountain, we’d be very careful not to make the same mistake again. We also recognised when others close to us were in danger too so would feel this anxiety if we saw them close to the edge of a cliff, for example, or if they were about to be eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger.

Anxiety is a state of mind and body where the stress response has kicked in. This is described as the ‘fight or flight’ response – stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol would surge through the bodies of our ancient ancestors so they would have the wherewithal to fight a predator or run away from it - flight.

That’s why we still experience a wide variety of bodily sensations when experiencing anxiety – trembling, tingling, feelings of heaviness, tightness in the chest, light-headedness, sweaty palms – these are just a few of the possible physical symptoms; we are literally feeling the changes in our body chemistry.

Hundreds of generations on and we still feel anxiety. Sometimes we feel it in response to very real threats to ourselves or others but, more often than not we experience it in response to imagined scenarios playing out in our minds. If you experience worry or anxiety, you are doing a good job at hypnotising yourself (but in the wrong way)! You are using your imagination to picture yourself or others sometime in the future experiencing the worst possible outcome. If you’re doing this on a regular basis, and the anxiety becomes a chronic habit it can have a huge effect on the quality of your life. But please don’t give up hope! Because, actually, if you’re able to use your imagination in this way then you’ll be able to use your imagination in a much more productive way in order to help you out of the anxiety. In other words, with a little patience, practise and perseverance, you’ll be able to hypnotise yourself to imagine much more positive outcomes.

One of the most important things to remember is that your mind affects your body, and your body affects your mind. In other words if you find that your mind races away with unwanted thoughts, then training your body to relax on a regular basis will also train your mind that it can also respond in a more relaxed way too.

Anxiety often goes against all logic – we know that these worst case scenarios are unlikely to happen – and this can sometimes lead us to judge ourselves harshly saying things like “I feel so stupid”, “I know it’s silly”, “I feel so pathetic”. This is perhaps when we need to remember that anxiety is a very natural process that may have simply got out of hand. When we recognise this, it becomes a little easier to deal with and we can, once again, begin to treat ourselves more gently and with a little more compassion.

There is a whole host of different techniques that can help with the symptoms of chronic and acute anxiety. Finding the ones that feel right for you is so important. If a technique does not feel right, then I would suggest finding one that does – if you are not comfortable doing it then you are unlikely to get results.

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- photo courtesy of Stuart Miles @ freedigitalphotos.net