Anxiety

Chronic anxiety. A textbook case. If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common reasons people reach out to a therapist, anywhere in the world.

Can you do something about it?

Absolutely. Long-exhale breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, physical activity. You’re also often told to cut out caffeine and anything that winds you up. And to give yourself a set time of day to worry.

Have you tried these or similar methods? If not, definitely try them. Hard to do on your own? No problem. Find a coach to help you. There are plenty around. These methods really do work.

And if you have tried them, notice something. You can stop feeding the anxiety, and then it flares up less often and gets in your way less. You can suppress its physical expression: the way you breathe and the tension you carry in your muscles. And that, too, keeps the anxiety from growing.

You can bend your whole life to a strict discipline of controlling the anxiety. Good news. It can be controlled. More news. The anxiety doesn’t go anywhere. It sits inside you, waiting for your grip to slip, so it can remind you it’s still there.

Maybe that’s not a prospect that works for you?

Then you can see a doctor. Anxiety is an officially recognized diagnosis. If your symptoms add up, you’ll get one. And that alone will do you good.

You’re sick, which means you’re not to blame. The irony is that you’re not to blame anyway.

But here’s what happens next.

A psychiatrist will help you dial the anxiety down with medication.

And a therapist will teach you to watch your thoughts, catch cognitive distortions, test your anxious thoughts through behavior, and notice when you’re feeding your anxiety with your own actions. You might even be taught an effective relaxation technique, and offered behavioral experiments to prove to you that everything is under control, and to get you to actually believe it.

You’ll become an expert on anxiety. You’ll learn to control it like a professional. It will keep demanding your attention, but once control becomes a habit, the effort won’t be too much.

But wait.

Are you sure something in you is broken? I’m not.

If the reasons for your anxiety are real and your reaction is proportional to your circumstances, you’re not sick. You’re adapting to the situation. What needs fixing isn’t you. It’s the circumstances.

And if that’s not it, or not all of it, you’re not sick either. Somewhere inside you a pattern is still alive, formed by exactly the same kind of adaptation, only in the past. Alive around the clock, 24/7. And the right trigger, event, or even just a stray thought sets off the self-protection response that helps you defend yourself against something that hasn’t been in your life for a long time. And your mind helpfully offers plausible explanations.

This pattern can be found in the body.

And it can be loosened. I do it with my hands. It doesn’t always come easy or fast. It’s often connected to other patterns, and that takes time. But even loosening it partially, you can be sure that the cause of your anxiety itself has shrunk. And you simply won’t need to control it anymore, because there will be nothing left to control.