Coping With Anxiety’s Effects
Anxiety refers to a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. It’s more than just feeling stressed. It’s feeling so stressed out that we’re unable to think clearly or respond well to difficult situations. That’s why it can be so challenging to work through. Remember as with all other emotions, anxiety is not good or bad. Emotions are morally neutral. You feel it and then you respond to it. Anxiety is best understood and managed, however, when you consider its emotional, physical, and spiritual components. Let’s look at each component and a few coping strategies that help in those specific areas.
“Remember as with all other emotions, anxiety is not good or bad. Emotions are morally neutral.”
First let’s consider anxiety’s obvious emotional component. Anxious feelings are a normal reaction to a situation where a person feels under pressure, either because they aren’t able to anticipate what will happen or because they feel challenged by the difficulty of the situation. However, for some people these anxious feelings happen for no apparent reason or continue after the stressful event has passed. Have you ever been in a season of life where it feels like the stress just keeps coming? Anxiety is created by stressful events that continue in succession. You keep waiting for the calm so you can relax, and it doesn’t come. This kind of anxiety can lead to overwhelm as we attempt to manage all the feelings associated with stress. There is a four-step path that can help you deal with anxiety:
Notice -> Identify -> Experience -> Release
In order to process the emotions that arise from anxiety, you must first notice that you’re experiencing anxiety. This may sound obvious, but for many people beginning to identify anxiety or any emotion they’re experiencing takes some practice. Once you notice the anxiety, you then can identify the other emotions that are flowing from it. Using a feelings wheel can help with this step. Perhaps you’re feeling fear, uncertainty, anger, loneliness, or discouragement. The third step is to allow yourself to experience the emotions you have identified. This means you sit with the emotion, not distracting or avoiding it, but feeling it and allowing it to be present. This takes practice because for most of us it’s incredibly uncomfortable to let our emotions exist without attempting to stop them, push them away, or numb them. The last step is to release the emotion. Allow it to flow out of you. Let it come, and then let it go. Sometimes depending on the intensity, you may need to find a safe way to do this without hurting yourself or others.
Now let’s look at the physical component of anxiety. Understanding the way your body responds to anxiety is key to managing it. The star of the anxiety show is our nervous system. If you remember from high school biology all of us have an autonomic nervous system. It is made up of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The autonomic nervous system immediately responds to the stressors in our environment. Your sympathetic nervous system is your fight or flight response. It is triggered in response to stress, so you are ready to deal with the threat, either by fighting it or running away from it. Your parasympathetic nervous system is your rest and digest response. Once the threat is managed or has passed, your parasympathetic response activates and helps your body return to a calm state. When you experience chronic stress, your sympathetic nervous system stays engaged for too long and you can become dysregulated. You are hyper-aware, anxious, waiting to manage threats at all times. During this dysregulation, you don’t experience the natural return to a calm state typically provided by the parasympathetic nervous system.
One of the most effective coping tools to help with the physical component of anxiety is deep belly breathing. You’ve probably heard of doing breathwork to reduce anxiety. What you may not know is why this works so well. When you breathe deeply, your vagus nerve is stimulated and in turn, your parasympathetic nervous system is activated. This gets you out of a fight or flight state and back into a regulated state, complete with slower breathing, lower heart rate, and reduced sweating.
“Your sympathetic nervous system is your fight or flight response. It is triggered in response to stress, so you are ready to deal with the threat, either by fighting it or running away from it. Your parasympathetic nervous system is your rest and digest response. Once the threat is managed or has passed, your parasympathetic response activates and helps your body return to a calm state. ”
Lastly, let’s consider the spiritual component of anxiety. In order to understand how anxiety affects you spiritually, you need to consider your relationship to God. Do you believe God cares about how you feel? Do you believe He wants you to feel peaceful, contented, and calm? I believe the answer to these questions is Yes. Not only does He care, but he’s willing to provide this peace to anyone who chooses him. Matthew 11:28-30 (the Message) says, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Having peace and feeling content and calm isn’t the same thing as never having problems. God’s promise isn’t that you’ll never have burdens, but that you can rely on him to help you handle them - “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” (Psalm 68:19)
My favorite coping tool that addresses the spiritual component is the spiritual discipline of breath prayer. Breath prayer is a tool that uses your breath to help you focus and meditate on God. This tool can also be used in tandem with deep belly breathing. You can use any simple phrase or scripture. Use these two breath prayers to practice:
Breathe in - Lord grant me peace / Breathe out - Release my anxiety
Breathe in - The Lord is my Shepherd / Breathe out - I have all that I need
Understanding your symptoms of anxiety in connection to its emotional, physical, and spiritual components allow you to take a more holistic approach to your healing. These are just a few of the coping strategies that are effective. If these were helpful and you’d like additional support to manage your anxiety, please reach out to schedule a free consultation with Rebecca today.