Anxiety

Anxiety is a natural and normal response to stress. We’ve developed sophisticated nervous systems that are excellent at assessing our environment and determining what is safe, scary or threatening. Changes in our physical bodies, such as increased heart rate, shallow breathing, and restlessness can help us adapt to environmental conditions and respond to change in our lives.

It is when these biological responses become habituated that we develop anxiety disorders that actually inhibit our ability to process stress or respond effectively to our environment. These habituated responses can make our lives more stressful and become a feedback loop that feels hard to find a way out of. Chronic tension, hypervigilance, trembling and nausea, as well as irritability, obsessive or intrusive thoughts, and recurring thoughts of self-doubt, worry and fear are all symptoms of generalized anxiety. 

Learning to cope with stress and identifying relationships, roles, values and habits that support a balanced lifestyle are a part of shifting out of habitual anxiety. Working with awareness of the body can also be helpful in rebuilding and reconditioning neutral pathways that help our nervous systems to establish a sense of safety and support you in expanding your capacity to choose how you’ll respond to stress.

Somatic therapy, an approach that work with awareness of the body, can be effective in reducing the symptoms of anxiety and helping your system to return to balance. Read more about somatic therapy here:

Anxiety Reading List

Brach, Tara (2004). Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha. 

Harris, Russ (2007).  The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living.

McLaren, Karla (2010). The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You. 

Schwartz, Richard (2021). No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. 

Stossel, Scott (2014). My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread and the Search for Peace of Mind.