Let’s talk about anxiety. As a category, anxiety is the second leading cause of mental health related issues after depression. Anxiety used to provide an evolutionary advantage because our ancestors who were anxious were more likely to fight or run away from dangers such as
predators or anything that would put their lives at risk. We have inherited that trait because it was an advantage. However, nowadays our society is not the same way. We don’t face the same dangers but our brains still see our stressors as worthy of having that anxiety response.
Have an important exam, fearing to lose our job and so on trigger it even though it is not life threatening. It is a disproportionate response compared to the level of threat in our environment. When it happens very often that’s when it becomes problematic.
Anxiety is always about fear of the future. We cannot be anxious about something that happened in the past (that’s depression). We respond to that uncertainty by having an anxiety response. One of the ways we attempt to take control of our anxiety is by controlling
our environment. That leads to issues such as “perfectionism” and an inability to let go when we cannot control a situation. Slowly, we disengage with the world because we cannot our society, but we can control our homes and our small surroundings so we withdraw further.
It is important to slowly work on accepting that uncertainty. The future is uncertain no matter how hard we try to control our life. The present is the only timeline that truly exists. Accepting uncertainty goes a long way into challenging our anxiety and living despite
not knowing what will happen. Another strategy is to connect with the present. Whenever I feel anxious, I close my eyes, notice the sounds around me, the smells, the touch of the seat on my body, anything to connect me to where I am right now.
Deep breathing also helps because we are focused on breathing properly and not those shallow breaths that come with our anxiety. When we breathe deeply (belly breaths where we feel it go up and down), we force our heart rate to go down and reduce the amount of adrenaline
released in our bodies. Those are small things that we can do in our life to reduce anxiety and make sure that it doesn’t keep affecting us further. If anxiety is out of control and affects your daily life, it is time to get treatment.
Anxiety is highly treatable and there are many ways to cope with it. Please do not keep living with it unnecessarily, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask 😊😊
