The Cycle of Anxiety
I’m sure you’re familiar with the shakey, uneasy, “gotta get out of here” experience of anxiety. Even though it can be really extremely uncomfortable, it’s a pretty common feeling. Less common is our understanding of anxiety!
Anxiety is one of the body’s ways of trying to get your attention and have you slow down. It can come from a motivating place of following schedules, making appointment times, and remembering assignments or responsibilities. But… it can also come from a place of fear and discomfort. This is the really uncomfortable type of anxiety that we usually have a hard time tolerating, and may include uncontrollable or irrational thoughts, worrying how others view you, and feeling overcome by social fears. This more negative form of anxiety is still trying to tell you something, even when we’d prefer it didn’t.
To get a better understanding of your anxiety, it can be helpful to learn about anxiety’s natural cycle. I’ll walk you through the four general stages, which tend to be true for whatever situation causes you anxiety.
As an example, I’ll use the fear of public speaking.
Stage One: Anxious Thought
This is the first anxious thought, the first fear that creeps in, or the first physical sensation we feel when we are faced with the situation.
Your teacher announces a new assignment - a solo presentation in front of the class. You feel your stomach drop and you are aware the teacher is still talking, but you have no idea what they are saying - you’re fully focusing on the idea of giving a presentation… in front of everyone.
Stage Two: Avoidance
When our anxious thoughts become too strong, we naturally do what we can to not feel the anxiety. This is avoidance.
It’s the day of your presentation, and the anxiety feels overwhelming. To avoid it and get away from these feelings, you beg your parents to call you out for the day. As soon as they do, you immediately feel a sense of relief.
Stage Three: Regulate
Our avoidance techniques help us to alleviate the anxiety and we start to feel our emotions regulate again.
Since you aren’t going to school today, the presentation is out of your mind and you have a nice day at home.
Stage Four: Increased Anxiety
By postponing the anxiety with short term actions, we’ve likely increased the anxiety we will feel in the long term.
The next school day has rolled around - and you know you’ll have to do your presentation this time. Your parents won’t call you out and there’s nothing else you can do to get out of it. You’re physically shaking and feel absolutely terrified.
While we are naturally wired to avoid situations our bodies feel are threatening, this leads us to feel increased anxiety when we eventually have to face the situation. The immediate relief from avoidance actually lowers our threshold for discomfort, meaning we feel ever more anxious the next time.
When we teach our body that avoidance takes anxiety away, we are engaging in a pattern our body will want to continue with. This pattern can feel so strong that you might not believe me when I say there is another way we can work with the cycle of anxiety. Anxiety never feels good, but we can learn to understand what it’s trying to tell us and then decide what to do with the information.
Break the Cycle of Anxiety
Living with decreased anxiety is possible and within reach. If you feel ready to explore alternative ways of managing your anxiety, please schedule your free 15 minute consultation to get started with therapy in Dublin, CA with me today. I’d love to go over the different ways therapy could help you.