Anxiety

​Responding to Danger

Anxiety is what we feel when our body is responding to danger - real or imagined! When we sense danger, we produce adrenalin in readiness to defend ourselves. Our thoughts, breathing, and heart rate speed up, and our senses are heightened - sharper. This is the fight/flight/freeze moment where we are subconsciously deciding how to respond to a potential threat. Whether the threat is real or imagined, large or small, imminent or potential our body will respond in the same way - produce adrenalin and create anxiety.

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Negative thinking

Negative thinking also creates anxiety. Every time we have a negative thought, we're creating anxiety. Not only are we creating that anxiety with our negative thoughts, but we're also collecting, storing, and accumulating it - we say we're filling our 'stress bucket.' In our busy, modern lives, we've become really good at finding ways to fill our bucket - and filling it full and fast - sometimes even overflowing.

 

Many of us also tend to negatively forecast an idea, event, or situation and then ruminate on it - replaying it over and over. Each time we do this, we add to the level of stress in our bucket. Then we actually experience the idea, event, or situation, and if it doesn't go perfectly, we may well add a little more stress to our bucket. Then most of us will negatively introspect about this same idea, event or situation after it has happened, and we will replay it over and over. Once again, each time we do this, we add a little more to the stress level in our bucket.

 

Crazy but avoidable truth

One event can cause an enormous amount of anxiety to go into our bucket even before the event, then more during the event, and then a whole bunch more after. Crazy, isn't it?

 

Stress bucket

The fuller our stress bucket gets, the less intellectual control we have and the more our automated survival mechanisms are activated in the Limbic System. The Limbic System will do what it needs to keep you safe if it senses danger; it'll increase your heart rate, breathing, and thinking. You'll be pumped full of oxygen. Your muscles will be tense, pumped, and primed for action. Your senses will be sharp, heightened, focused, and ready to respond in an instant. At this point, light-headedness and dizziness are common too. Your fight/flight/freeze response is about to activate!

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Fight/Flight/Freeze

It might make sense to freeze and do nothing, in which case we'll remain at a heightened state of alert - with plenty of adrenalin and other stress hormones flowing through our veins until we can reassess the situation establish that the danger has passed. At that point, the alarm and chemical production will cease, and levels will return to normal.

 

On the other hand, fight or flight might be the obvious choice, in which case any number of things might happen. Remember that our body will do everything in its power to keep us safe. Energy will be diverted from other parts of our body and focused on the situation. In many senses, much of our body shuts down for an instant during a fight/flight response to channel energy to where it's needed most - at the moment.

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Survival mode

Our body will effectively go into an automated, athletic survival mode. If our bowels or stomach are full and the mind thinks that this may impede the survival response, i.e. running, we may well vomit or loosen our bowels involuntarily. If our survival response copes with our bowel and stomach contents in place, then we'll be spared that embarrassment.

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Fear response

The point to note here is that although the anxiety, the fear response, can at times be problematic, it is a necessary survival instinct aimed at keeping us alive. The mind and body are trying to help. The reality for most of us is that whilst we don't have many of these sudden emergency type life-threatening big events in our lives, we do have the constant bombardment of news, radio, magazines, billboards, TV, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, advertising, emails, social media, work, family, financial and other concerns. Each of these may be small, and whilst in isolation, they seem manageable; as a whole, they're way too much and have the same effect as that sudden emergency-type life-threatening big event!

 

The stress effect

Big, sudden stresses or smaller, gradual stresses have the same metabolic effect, and the increased level of anxiety causes us to slip out of intellectual control where we were making good and sensible decisions. We now slip into automated, involuntary survival stress responses where we're reacting instinctively at a survival level - not thinking. Our reactions may not even be proportionate or appropriate, but we will always act first and think later in this survival mode. In fact, our reactions happen twice as fast as our thoughts, so we really do act first and think later in these situations - a survival necessity.

 

Rapid Eye Movement

Our bucket is filling or full, and fortunately, our bodies have a beautiful and ingenious way of emptying our stress bucket known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. That's right, during the REM phase of our sleep, our body/mind empties our bucket, and we wake up feeling great or at least a little better if everything is working as it should.

 

Too much stress & not enough sleep

Some of us run into trouble here because we're not getting enough good sleep, or we're so good at thinking negatively that we very easily add more to our bucket than we needed to. If we're always worried about stuff (real or imagined), then we're going to be in a constant state of high alert, a constant state of high-stress hormone levels, and therefore high anxiety levels! This is where things get chronic and where all sorts of symptoms will present.

 

OK, so now for the good news!

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy has a few wonderful ways of working with the body and the mind to manage, reduce and sometimes completely dissolve or resolve anxiety. Identify positive goals and work toward them. Develop positive thinking, encourage positive interaction with the community and or loved ones, and including a little positive activity every day. Identify and reverse negative habits and thinking. Reduce the amount going into the bucket. Increase the quality of sleep and therefore REM and naturally reduce anxiety - emptying the bucket. Adding, through trance, opportunities for nonsleep deep rest, which mimic the REM state and further empty the stress bucket. Not only does Solution Focused Hypnotherapy help to reduce anxiety, but it actively encourages the increase of the levels of happy hormones like Serotonin, Dopamine, Endorphin, Noradrenaline, and so on, which help to swing anxiety into motivation and happiness.

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