Anxiety: It’s Not All In Your Head
Let me ask you a question - have you ever heard any of the below responses after gathering up the courage to share that you are struggling with anxiety?
“Oh, just snap out of it.”
“Stop worrying.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Calm down.”
And my favorite - “It’s all in your head.”
Is your blood boiling yet? Yeah, mine is. Unfortunately, when the ones we love say these things to us, we tend to believe them. We think, “yeah, I should be able to stop worrying about it and calm down.” And, “Maybe it is all in my head.” Unfortunately, that sort of thinking just makes the anxiety worse.
I spent many years fighting an internal battle where I thought I could just snap out of it and stop worrying. Until the day I didn’t. What if I told you that your body has a physical response to anxiety and that it’s not all in your head? Are you ready to learn how the body and mind play a role with your anxiety so you can quiet that inner critic of yours? This simplified explanation will provide the clarity you need in order to find relief from your inner critic, reduce your anxiety and feel a deeper sense of self-love.
The Body Functions
I want to be super clear that I’m not a neurologist or even play one on TV. Far from it! So everything I’m about to tell you is my “simplified” version of a very complex process that happens in the brain and the body when you suffer from anxiety.
First, let’s talk about the parts that play a role during an anxious moment:
The Amygdala: Considered part of the limbic system (i.e., the part of the brain that controls emotions and memory), it's mainly responsible for emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation.
The Hypothalamus: It is a small but crucial part of the brain that is responsible for keeping the body in a balanced state. I think of it as the “command center” that controls several important bodily functions, such as body temperature, thirst, appetite, emotions, sleep cycle, blood pressure, etc. The autonomic nervous system (the WHAT?) is connected through the Hypothalamus. (More on that in a moment).
The Prefrontal Cortex: This is the “executive decision making” part of your brain. This is where you plan, think, reason and self-regulate. Interestingly enough, this part of your brain isn’t fully functioning until you are around 22 years old. (If you have a teenager, that fact might make a lot of sense!)
The Autonomic Nervous System: Governs all processes in the body that you don’t need to think about. Your heart beat, blood flow, digestion, respiratory rate, liver function, and so on. The autonomic nervous system can be broken down into two parts:
Sympathetic Nervous System: Think fight, flight, freeze or faint. This system helps us get out of bed in the morning, stay awake and be on alert for danger. Think of this as the “gas” pedal in a car.
NOTE: When your sympathetic nervous system is on, your heart beats faster, blood pressure increases, blood rushes to the limbs, digestion turns off, adrenaline is pumped into the body and cortisol is released to keep the body revved up until the threat has passed.
AND - The prefrontal cortex goes offline and the amygdala runs the show. (in other words - you make decisions from your emotional brain vs. your thinking brain).Parasympathetic Nervous System: Think pause, rest, digest and heal. This system helps us relax our body, calm our mind and slow down. Think of this as the “brake” or the “deceleration” in a car.
NOTE: When the parasympathetic nervous system is on, your heart rate decreases, blood pressure goes down, digestion turns on and adrenaline and cortisol stop pumping through the body.
AND - The prefrontal cortex goes online and you make decisions from your thinking brain.
Your Brain and Body On Anxiety
Ok - so that got pretty technical - my bad! But stick with me here and it will all make sense!
Here’s how it all comes together:
Your amygdala takes in information viscerally (e.g., “a gut feeling”) and through the five senses (touch, smell, taste, sound, sight). If the amygdala perceives danger, it sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, which then activates the sympathetic nervous system and the body physically reacts by pumping adrenaline into the bloodstream. The heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, eyes dilate, and all the other things I mentioned above!
And remember! The executive decision making part of the brain goes offline and the amygdala is running the show from the emotional center - which is shouting, “Must stay alive!”
Consider a situation where someone is walking down the street and has to jump out of the way of a moving vehicle. They don’t have to THINK, “oh, that car seems to be coming toward me so I should move a bit quicker now and maybe even jump onto the grass so that I don’t get hurt.” Nope. The amygdala takes in the danger through the senses and within SECONDS your body reacts to move you out of the way. Thank you body!
However … The amygdala is not super savvy. Unfortunately it can’t tell the difference between an actual threat, (e.g., getting out of the way of a moving vehicle) and a perceived threat (e.g., anxiety).
Anxiety is the memory of fear or the anticipation of fear.
As worry and stress ruminate in your mind, the brain believes you are unsafe and the amygdala interprets your present moment to be a threat to your survival! So your body reacts the same way it would if there was an immediate danger. The chemicals pumping in your body fuel the mind to continue thinking it’s unsafe, which revs up the body even more! You end up feeling physically distressed even though you are probably just sitting on the couch.
Finally, since you aren’t doing anything physical to use up those fear-induced chemicals (like physically jumping out of the way of a moving vehicle), they build up in your joints and muscles which leaves you in chronic pain and emotional turmoil. No thank you body.
Enter The Breath
So now that you realize anxiety is not all in your head, what can you do when you are feeling anxious?
You can breathe.
The breath is the only function in the body that is part of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It runs on its own AND you can bring your awareness to it and control it! Pretty neat stuff.
Research shows that taking a deep breath into the lowest lobes of the lungs actually triggers the parasympathetic nervous system to pop back online. So you can literally slow down the body and turn on your prefrontal cortex by simply taking a few deep breaths!
The next time someone says “don’t worry”, or “just snap out of it”, remind yourself that you can’t “think” the anxiety away. If your inner critic says otherwise, gently say to yourself, “my body is physically responding to my anxiety right now.” From there take a few slow, deep breaths, bringing your awareness to each inhale and exhale, in order to calm your body and relax your mind.
So there you have it! My simplified explanation as to why your anxiety is not “just in your head”. You now have the knowledge you need to find relief from your inner critic, reduce your anxiety and feel a deeper sense of self-love. Wondering what other techniques might work to reduce your anxiety in an anxious moment? Grab my Five Simple & Quick Steps you can do right now that will immediately reduce your anxiety and stop your overthinking mind!