Break free from the mental merry-go-round
Is your anxiety giving you anxiety?
Too many people get stuck in this loop: You start to feel your heart beating faster, your chest starts to feel tight, your vision gets blurry, or maybe your stomach feels like it’s in knots. These sensations are unnerving and they start to make you feel even more panicked because you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know if it’ll stop, or what will happen next.
I used to get stuck here all the time and I don’t wish that experience on anyone.
My anxiety was always worse at night. During the day I could distract myself away from those feelings, but as soon as I got in bed and everything was quiet, that’s when the anxiety would flare. I was convinced there was something wrong with my heart so listening to my heartbeat would send me into a panic because I was sure my heart was going to stop at any second. I had to find a position to lie in that kept me from hearing or feeling my heart beat, but that was hard when it was beating so hard and fast.
I would have random twinges or feelings of pressure in my head, which could only be sign of a giant brain tumor. Obviously.
Every sensation was an indication that I was dying. I felt completely out of control. And it was awful.
This went on for years. It was only after I learned what was truly happening in my body that everything changed.
So often our fear of anxiety just creates more anxiety and we get stuck in this feedback loop.
How can we break this pattern? First, by understanding what anxiety actually is.
For most people who experience anxiety, we think of it as a condition or a disease or a sign that we’re broken. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Anxiety is simply your nervous system trying to give you information. Anxiety is a threat response. Your nervous system is always on alert to any potential threats, either external or internal. That is its job.
Anxiety is one of the ways your nervous system lets you know there’s a threat present. Anxiety is one of the feelings of fight or flight, it’s meant to motivate you to take action. You breathe faster to take in more oxygen. Your heart beats faster so more oxygen can get to your muscles in case you need to run or fight. You have a rush of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol so more glucose becomes available so you have the energy to run or fight.
These processes are what keep you alive when there is a valid threat happening. If you didn’t feel anxiety when getting closer to a dangerous cliff’s edge, then you might get too close and fall off.
The problem is when we’re having anxiety but completely unaware of why it’s happening. That’s usually when our thoughts take over.
When we don’t understand what is happening physiologically, we naturally try to make sense of it. But when we are in that fight or flight state, our logic has just gone out the window. Our limbic system (our emotional brain) is in the driver seat. Our thoughts can easily turn erratic and to the worst case scenario. But those thoughts just keep us in that loop response.
Here’s what that loop looks like:
Our nervous system alerts to a threat (internal or external). Those physical sensations cause us to spiral into “what if” thinking, our thinking then raises the threat level going to the nervous system, which just raises that threat response, which leads to even more fearful thinking.
Nervous System Alerts => Creates fearful thinking
Fearful Thinking => Heightens Nervous System Alert response => Creates more panicked thinking
Regulating your nervous system is about rewiring your nervous system so it stops reacting to minor threats as if they’re major; but a big piece of regulating is stopping this loop by managing your thoughts around what is happening.
But in order to do that, you have to first understand and accept that you are not broken, that you are not dying, and that what your nervous system is doing is on purpose and meant to protect you.
And I get it, that’s a very hard truth to accept. Especially when you’ve been living in this state for a long time.
But I’ve seen first hand that this works. I don’t spiral anymore like I used to. I still have moments of anxiety, because I’m alive and live in a stressful world. But I’m not afraid of anxiety anymore. It’s just information.
If you can view anxiety as information from your nervous system that something is off, it can change everything.
For instance, a few months ago I woke up in the middle of the night with my heart racing. It felt exactly like the start of a panic attack. In years past, it would have turned into a full blown panic attack that kept me awake for hours, but this time it didn’t, and only because my thoughts didn’t spiral.
Instead of immediately becoming afraid, I got curious. I noticed what my body felt like and was immediately able to determine it was an adrenaline dump. I understood what that felt like. But because I knew that an adrenaline dump wasn’t life threatening, I was able to recognize that I wasn’t in any danger. My nervous system for some reason thought I was in danger, and it caused adrenaline to be dumped into my system.
I was then able to get curious. Why would I be having a dump of adrenaline in the middle of the night? Was my blood sugar dropping too low? I did eat a bunch of ice cream after dinner and then had some wine. I bet that threw off my blood sugar balance and this is how my body is trying to fix it.
All of this happened in a few seconds. I simply did a few breathing exercises, grounded myself, and was back to sleep within a few minutes.
Years ago, I would have been up for hours in complete panic.
This change didn’t happen overnight. It took time and effort to learn what was happening in my body, to accept that I wasn’t broken, and to develop a sense of compassion and even gratitude for my nervous system response.
The next time you start to feel a sense of anxiety, first just be aware of your thoughts. Remember, all of it-your physical sensations as well as your thoughts-is just information. Anxiety is a form of communication from your nervous system. So what is it trying to tell you? What threat is it sensing?
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Have I been getting enough sleep?
What’s my diet been like?
Am I setting boundaries with work or other responsibilities?
Have I been getting enough exercise?
When was the last time I got outside?
Am I spending too much time in front of a screen?
Am I drinking enough water?
Have I been putting off taking action in any areas?
What habits could be having a negative impact?
What positive habits have I been neglecting?
When you understand that anxiety is just information, it’s just your smoke alarm going off, then it teaches you to go look for the smoke.
And this is why educating yourself on how the nervous system works is so important.
This is why I spend the first module of my course Regulate + Thrive on exactly this. It was a huge piece of healing my nervous system and what finally broke me free from this spiral.
It’s not the only piece though, you still want to rewire your nervous system so it doesn’t overreact to threats anymore. How to do that is also addressed in my course.
If you’re ready to break the cycle you’ve been stuck in, then this course is for you.
