Anxiety & Your Body
This article was written as a resource for my clients to help them to understand how anxiety functions in our body, but it may be a good resource for others as well!
Understanding our physiological responses to anxiety can help us to recognise signs and symptoms earlier on and take steps to prevent our anxiety escalating to the point where it becomes distressing or impairing. Anxiety is a normal, healthy part of being human. In fact, it is essential. As I explain to clients, our goal is not to eliminate anxiety altogether. When the smoke alarm goes off, I need your system to still be able to kick in so that you can grab the kids and the dog and escape from the flames safely. The problem is when it starts activating in the absence of an immediate threat.
So what are the symptoms of a healthy, anxious alarm system? You may have heard of the ‘fight or flight’ response. I know I’ve mentioned it before, or you may recall it from high-school biology. But what actually happens to our bodies when this kicks in? When we perceive a threat (real or imagined our brain interprets either scenario as the same), we release a big hit of adrenaline into our blood stream from our adrenal glands. Adrenaline is like revving up the engine of the body and it makes all our systems run faster, diverting blood and oxygen to the larger muscles so that we can run fast or defend ourselves from danger. But what else happens?
Thoughts: Our thoughts start to race. This can be quite distressing and may lead to further panic, but it serves a good purpose. When we are in danger, we need to be able to think quickly and on our feet. However, racing thoughts can make us feel like things around us are unreal, or that we have become detached from reality. People in traumatic events such as car crashes may report feeling as though the whole event went into slow motion, or they felt like they were witnessing the event from afar.
Breath: Our breathing becomes fast and shallow to quickly obtain oxygen to be delivered around the body (in order to run or fight). Oddly, for some people this shallow breathing can make them feel like they are not getting enough air and they may feel like they are choking.
Heart: To pump the oxygen around our body, our heart will begin to beat faster. We will experience palpitations and an increase in blood pressure. This is an important response as it is this extra oxygen to our muscles that will enable us to run faster or attack and defend if we need to.
Head: The sudden increase in oxygen also goes to our brain and can make us feel lightheaded and dizzy. This may exacerbate the feelings of de-realisation.
Muscles: As the blood and oxygen flows to our limbs in preparation of fighting or running away, our muscles can tense up and start to ache.
Hot & Sweaty: Just like when an engine revs, our body too gets hot from all this extra activity and as a result we start to sweat.
Stomach: Adrenaline relaxes our stomach and intestine as the blood is diverted to our legs and arms and this can make us feel nauseous or experience butterflies and churning tummies. Sometimes this can cause people to vomit or bring on a bout of diarrhoea. Anyone ever vomited before an exam? Or had diarrhoea before a big event? It’s completely normal.
Bladder: Our sphincter muscles may also relax bringing on the urge to urinate and in extreme terror conditions this may cause involuntary release.
Hands & Legs: All of this adrenaline and oxygen may cause our hands and legs to tremble or feel ‘like jelly’. We may also feel numbness or tingling sensations like ‘pins and needles’.
Eyes & Mouth: Our eyes become wider to let in more light and our mouth can become dry (as blood is diverted elsewhere).
After all of this has happened it’s no wonder then that we may feel exhausted, weak, and our body may ache. The good news is that we are unable to stay in this state for prolonged periods of time (but we may consistently cycle in and out). Recognising the symptoms and sensations will enable us to identify the early warning signs of anxiety and take steps to prevent the symptoms from escalating. For example, if we notice our breathing has become shallow and fast we can consciously and purposefully slow our breathing down by using techniques such as 4,7,8 breathing. This will signal our mind that there is no threat and hopefully stop the further release of adrenaline. This simple exercise should also help reduce the feelings of light-headedness and dizziness as well as eventually slow our heart rate down. Click here to read more about the 4,7,8 Breathing Technique.
Are you struggling with anxiety? Want more strategies and techniques? Book an appointment here.
