Where Does Anxiety Come From? Part 1
I thought I’d take a moment to talk a little bit about the different sources of anxiety out there since anxiety is becoming so ubiquitous in our world. There’s sometimes a misconception that all anxiety is created equal, but the truth is that it comes in many different shades, each with its own nuance. While there are times that anxiety can simply be a sign of an organic chemical imbalance, needing to be corrected with pharmaceuticals, my experience as a therapist and human is that anxiety tends to be an important signal that can help us grow or undertake needed changes in our lives if we can understand why it’s happening. I’m going to undertake a series of blog posts to delineate some of the more common forms of anxiety. We’ll cover anxiety from environmental stressors, suppressed or displaced emotions, interpersonal difficulties and finally the anxiety from existential concerns. It’s important to understand though that these different forms can be standalone concerns or they can be combined one with another. Some people are able to resolve their anxiety with introspection and better self-care. Others may need the support of a trained professional to help them untangle the threads and gain a clearer view of what’s going on.
The first form of anxiety that I’ll cover is environmental anxiety because that is probably the most common underlying dynamic in people that seek counseling. I think most of us can accept the premise that our fast-paced, technologically complex western lifestyle is very different from our hunter/gatherer/agrarian roots. The historical human did not spend life sitting behind a desk, driving through traffic, dealing with office drama, maintaining complex social networks online while trying to squeeze in family time or school and chores to boot. This high level of activity, though impressive, tends to create fragility in that we’re one or two straws away from the “straw that broke the camels back” phenomenon.
Rather than finding a way to get rid of the sensations of anxiety, it’s important to discern first if it’s telling you something important about the way you’re approaching life. Anxiety can actually be a good thing, because it can represent a signal from our body that we’re running our engine in the red zone and may be risking our health and wellbeing by doing so. There is no way to exist that is completely anxiety free, but if anxiety reaches a certain pitch for a long enough duration without being addressed it can sometimes create other problems with anger turned inwards (depression), anger turned outwards (interpersonal friction) and health issues. I’ve blogged in the past about the Rae-Holmes Stress Inventory (see blog post “Too Much Stress?”) which can be a helpful tool for discerning if we’re overextending ourselves and whether our anxiety is a normal-human-level, or an “about to blow level.”
You can view your body as having a certain capacity for stress, like a bank account has a certain capacity for expenses. If you find that you’re overdrawing your account, the best thing to do is to reign in your spending to live within your means. Uncloaking our smilie to translate this to your anxiety, it means that sometimes if your anxiety is peaking and feeling unbearable you may need to end your exposure to some of your stressors. Maybe there’s a toxic relationship that you need to have better boundaries for, maybe you don’t need to be a member of 5 different organizations, maybe it’s finally time to quit that job that’s slowly killing you. I understand that this can be a hard sell for some of you, but before you write off this option, really give it some thought and weigh your options. Maybe talk it over with a friend or family member that knows you well.
The other alternative for the bank-account analogy is to add more capital to your account. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can compensate for your stressors by practicing better self-care. Exercise, good sleep hygiene, spiritual disciplines, walking, mindfulness, healthy eating, herbal tea, reading for pleasure, gardening, saunas, yoga, spending time with a trusted friend. These are all things that can, to a certain extent fill your tank back up if your stressors are non-negotiable. Even if you do the work to decrease the amount of stressors in your life, upping your self-care is an important part of recovering from a period of prolonged stress and protecting against overextending yourself in the future. As with the building of all good habits, see if you can pair self-care activities to other concrete parts of your schedule: maybe doing mindfulness before you read the news in the morning, going for a jog when it’s time to walk the dog.
As you cast a weathered eye over this blog post do you have any thoughts about how your stress account is banking? Does your score on the Rae-Holmes Stress Inventory come as a surprise?
