Anxiety is all in your head (and nervous system)
…And no, you’re not “making anxiety up.”
If you struggle with anxiety, you might ask yourself…
“Why am I feeling so anxious about something that’s not that big of a deal?”
“Other people aren’t anxious about this kind of thing…what’s wrong with ME?”
“If I could just stop thinking about this, I’d be ok.”
Other people telling you to just “calm down” is so frustrating, am I right? Because if you could “just calm down,” I’m betting you would have already done so by now.
And hearing “it’s all in your head” can feel so fucking dismissive
Here’s the thing…technically, they aren’t wrong. But they also aren’t entirely right.
Saying that something is “all in your head” is basically code for “you can just decide to make yourself feel calmer” - as if it were a light switch you could turn on and off at will. Which is absolutely NOT helpful when you are anxiety-spiraling.
But here’s how anxiety really IS in your head - and why that’s not your fault!
The science of anxiety really does matter.
It’s all about your physiology: how you biologically function as a living, breathing, feeling, thinking human being, including your experience of anxiety.
Once you understand even just a fraction the physiology of anxiety, you can free yourself from the whole “I-should-be-able-to-control-my-anxiety” bullshit. And start unburdening yourself from all the myths surrounding anxiety and its “cure.”
Best of all, you can learn to support your physiology so you can find ease and RELIEF from anxiety.
It all starts with your your autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is designed to keep all the functions of your body going and in balance. It works involuntarily without your conscious effort, and controls things like your heartbeat, digestion, breathing, blood circulation, etc.
Your ANS has two parts:
The sympathetic nervous system - this triggers your body’s “fight or flight” survival response in dangerous situations by raising your heart rate, speeding up your breathing and making it shallower, dilating your pupils, etc., so you can flee or fight your way to safety FAST.
and
The parasympathetic nervous system - when the danger is over, this shifts your body back into a state of calm - so you can “rest and digest” or “feed and breed.”
Even though your ANS functions involuntarily, it IS possible to “redirect” it when you’re feeling anxious…thereby bringing in more calm to your body and mind. More on this ahead!
So, exactly how does anxiety start?
When you perceive that you’re in any kind threatening situation, your brain immediately alerts the sympathetic nervous system to kick your “fight-or-flight” response into gear. Your body is mobilized to run away or fight off an aggressor in order to find safety. The primary emotion you feel? You guesed it - FEAR (and also anger when it turns into the “fight” response).
This all happens in a split second, beyond your control. The thinking part of your brain goes partially offline, and your animal instincts kick in.
Imagine you’re crossing the street, and suddenly, a car comes straight at you at high speed: your heart pounds, your breathing speeds up and your muscles tense to mobilize you to instinctively jump out of the way. The sympathetic nervous system reaction is like a gas pedal in a car, always ready to accelerate and take you out of danger.
(Side note: you may also have heard of the “freeze” and “fawn” responses to danger. While these are nervous system responses that can also be involved in anxiety, the “flight” response is most frequently - but not exclusively - involved with anxiety…so I’m focusing on that for this discussion).
So, after the almost-getting-hit-by-a-car danger is over and you’re safe, your parasympathetic nervous system takes over and acts like a brake on a car: it slooows things down and calms the body, bringing it back into balance. Your heart gradually slows down, your breath becomes deeper/slower, your muscles relax.
“Yeah, that all makes sense…but that’s about physical survival, not about me feeling anxious about work!”
Here’s the thing: your nervous system can go into “flight” (fear) mode as you react to things that aren’t a matter of immediate life-or-death: financial concerns, uncomfortable social situations, giving a speech, giving a work presentation, etc.
Before all else, your brain and nervous system is wired to respond to THREAT - and in our modern world, where we don’t have to look over our shoulders for saber-toothed tigers or predators - what we perceive as threatening and dangerous has expanded.
The reasons why some people’s brains perceive, say, giving a presentation as threatening, and others’ don’t, is multi-faceted and complex. In this example, it could be that someone had a very painful and humiliating experience speaking in front of others a long, long time ago, and the brain “recorded” speaking in front of others as “dangerous:” if it goes poorly, it could lead to ridicule, judgment by others, rejection, maybe even losing a job.
So when that person is facing a situation that the unconscious brain perceives the new situation as somehow similar to the original experience(s) - and therefore, threatening - the survival-oriented sympathetic nervous system sends out the signal “DANGER! Something really bad is going to happen! Watch out!”
Then the thinking part of your brain also receives these physiological danger signals and interprets them by generating all kinds of anxious thoughts: “Oh no, what if I bomb this presentation? What will my co-workers think of me?”...and continues ruminating into worst-case scenarios, how horrible it might turn out, etc.
This whole process is replicated with pretty much anything that triggers your anxiety.
Here’s how to break the anxiety cycle.
I’m not going to over-simplify or sugarcoat the healing process. The allure of a “magic solution” that can painlessly cure your anxiety once and for all is real. You LONG for healing - and you’re in good company.
The overarching reasons why your nervous system and mind get stuck in an ongoing cycle of fear and anxiety are multi-faceted. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t real, tangible hope and help for shifting beyond anxiety, into a life of more ease and connection to the life that you really want to live.
facing life confidently, knowing that you can handles challenges that come your way.
living “bigger” and more expansively, doing the things you really want to do.
being more present in your relationships - with others AND yourself.
taking control back by knowing how to calm and soothe your mind and body.
So - how do you get unstuck from the vicious cycle of anxiety?
An important part of anxiety healing involves activating your parasympathetic nervous system - that part of the ANS that physiologically puts a brake on anxiety and promotes mental, emotional and even physical calm and ease.
Nervous system-informed therapy helps do two things:
“re-train” your nervous system to return to states of relative calm, and
heal the deeper root causes that have given rise to your anxiety in the first place.
The “deeper root causes” aren’t just the day-to-day stressors and life situations that trigger your anxiety. They also includes the painful life experiences, traumas and emotional wounding that may have contributed to you getting stuck in a pattern of anxiety.
These emotionally-painful experiences often happened long ago - and maybe even seemed “normal” (albeit uncomfortable) at the time. Sometimes the memories of these experiences are clear, sometimes vague - and sometimes outside of your immediate, conscious memory. Maybe they happened as discrete, “big” events or traumas, or perhaps they occurred over time as “smaller” - albeit impactful experiences (which, too, can be traumatic).
Nervous system- or neuroscience-informed psychotherapy seeks to address the causes and the effects of anxiety and trauma reactions. While many therapies emphasize talking about your problems, your history, what happened, etc. from a cognitive level, nervous system-informed therapy knows that it’s crucial to also address anxiety from a nervous system level: gently working with your physiology and the parts of the brain and nervous system that play a major role in your anxiety reactions. This can be referred to as “bottom up” processing, which is different than the “top down” processing that is a part of thought-based therapies, such as CBT.
Neuroscience-informed therapy for anxiety is like this:
Imagine a pot of boiling water on the stove with the lid on.
The intense pressure of the boiling water under the lid is your felt anxiety and stress (or anger).
The stove burner’s high flame are all of your anxiety “triggers” AND the root causes of your anxiety. Eventually, the pressure of the steam and boiling water will cause “your lid to flip,” so to speak - and this is when you can feel overwhelmed by the stress or maybe have an anxiety meltdown.
Now imagine sliding the lid off of your boiling pot of water - even just a fraction of an inch - and letting some of the pressure off, giving your body and mind some more relief and ease in the moment.
You can also lower the flame underneath by addressing some of those triggers and root causes of your anxiety, so your pot won’t keep boiling over in the first place.
Good, impactful therapy combines both this “bottom up” and the “top down” processing described earlier. By bringing awareness of your nervous system into your therapy - as well as learning just how to re-orient your nervous system to calm and ease - you can experience the full benefit of a holistically-oriented way of healing.
I draw from a toolbox of varied evidence-based therapeutic approaches: EMDR, IFS/Internal Family Systems-informed, Brainspotting, mindfulness-based, somatic-oriented, Emotional Freedom Techniques, solution-focused, Gestalt and more. All of these approaches provide useful and effective ways to not only help you cope with stress and anxiety - they can help you heal them. The approaches I use with each client are highly-individualized and dependent on their needs, preferred way of working, comfort level, goals and more.
I’m here if you want to talk more about therapy and how working with your nervous system can support you in your healing!
