Anxiety is something that many of us will experience at some point in our lives, it’s a natural and necessary part of our survival response system. We have evolved with this system over hundreds of thousands of years; it is hard wired to keep us safe and most importantly alive!
Sometimes this response system can become over-sensitised and be activated by things that aren’t a ‘real’ threat. We can start to experience generalised anxiety, social anxiety or even panic attacks. Our nervous system has become unbalanced and we need to take some positive action to change the unconscious process that is underpinning the imbalance we are experiencing.
If you are someone who has experienced anxiety you will understand how intense and life-limiting it can be, it’s so hard for anyone who hasn’t experienced it to understand what it is like and the strength is takes to just get through a ‘normal’ day.
When we are experiencing stress or a threat of some sort, whether that’s real or perceived, the entire branch of the sympathetic nervous system is activated.
This an immediate, widespread response called the fight-or-flight response.
This response is characterised by the release of large quantities of adrenaline from the adrenal gland, an increase in heart rate, widening of blood vessels causing an increase in blood flow through the vessels and a decrease in blood pressure, restricted blood flow to the skin, stomach & intestines, dilated pupils and also causing our hairs to stand on end!
The overall effect is to prepare us for immediate danger and we feel these physiological changes within our body. When this happens to us instantaneously and often for no ‘obvious’ reason, it can be really quite frightening at worst and un-nerving at best.
If we don’t understand what is happening, the physiological symptoms can be so intense that we start to distrust our body and this lack of trust in ourselves and our body only adds to the imbalance we are already experiencing.
We also then have to deal with the catastrophic or intrusive thoughts which can be a precursor to the physiological symptoms or can coincide with and amplify the physiological symptoms.
In short, it’s a lot! It’s overwhelming and it is often hidden from others around us as well. We can appear on the outside to be absolutely fine but internally we are spiralling – in that moment it is so hard to vocalise what is happening to those if they don’t have first hand experience of it for themselves.
The good news is that there is so much we can do to create positive change and nurture a healthy relationship with ourself, starting with learning how to use breathing and visualisation to create more balance within our nervous system and then moving on to exploring and creating change in the way in which our unconscious and subconscious is processing things.
We can let go of and re-process traumatic experiences, we can transform unhelpful and outdated self-beliefs and coping mechanisms and we can then choose how we want to respond to things; how we want to think, act and feel in our day-to-day lives and most importantly, we can enjoy positive and lasting transformation and a life free from un-warranted anxiety.
If you’d like to learn more about exactly how I work with my clients to do just this, I offer a free consultation and would love to hear from you.
Caroline
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