Coping With Anxiety
By Katherine LeCompte
Last week, I was running a group therapy session on coping with anxiety. One of my clients asked, “OK, what even is anxiety? I know I am anxious, but what is actually happening to me?”
This was a great question and one that really resonated with me because many years ago, I wondered the same thing. I, too, struggled with intense anxiety and panic attacks, so much that it was really affecting my life. At one point, my anxiety was so severe that I felt as if I were dying, and I went to the hospital. The ER doctor told me I was having panic attacks, and on the way out the door, he suggested that I needed to “just de-stress.” I left the hospital feeling frustrated and lost. While this advice wasn’t necessarily wrong, it didn’t help too much. Modern life can be hectic, and how do we simply get rid of stress? If it were that easy, many of us wouldn’t be feeling so anxious these days.
It turns out that we cannot get rid of stress. And we cannot get rid of anxiety. Our human minds and bodies experience anxiety responses by design. However, learning about the mechanics of anxiety and the ways we can address anxious responses is the best way to start to build more ease into our lives.
What Happens When We Are Anxious?
As I mentioned, our bodies are designed to experience anxiety and stress. Think of our distant ancestors who lived in a time when there were daily threats to survival—wild animals charging their caves or warfare among clans. They needed a way to quickly react to stay alive. A lot of us know this as the fight-or-flight response, a threat survival system in our brains and bodies meant to keep us safe and alive.
However, in modern times, it is rarer that our stressors are truly life threatening. Yet, we all still have that ancient threat survival system, and we react to stressors in our modern world in exactly the same way as our ancient ancestors—as if our lives are at stake. A part of our brain is constantly scanning our environment for threats, and if it detects one, it activates our stress response. Our hearts beat faster, our breathing quickens, our blood vessels dilate, our temperatures rise, and our brain chemistry starts pumping cortisol and adrenaline (stress chemicals) into our blood streams to prepare us for battle. At the same time, our ability to use the rational part of our brain, the part of our brain that can help us realize that our lives are not under threat, starts to go offline. This is why it is very hard to “think” our way out of anxiety.
How to Start to Manage Anxiety
Let’s think about how we might experience anxiety in our current world. Imagine Sarah is sitting in a classroom waiting for her turn to give a presentation. Sarah is dreading this; she does not like to speak in front of people. As she waits, Sarah starts feeling really anxious, maybe even panicky. As those feelings sweep over her, she is aware that she can’t think clearly, and her anxiety becomes worse. How is she going to perform if she can’t think? Sarah tries to practice her presentation in her mind, but it is not working, and her anxiety worsens. Sarah just wants to run out of the classroom and escape.
So, what should Sarah do to get through the presentation? A lot of us might think that she should tell herself to get over it, to stop being so nervous. However, thinking such things actually makes anxiety worse. Remember how our brains are reacting to threats in our environment? Beating ourselves up is a threat, too. Our brains respond to outside AND internal threats.
What Sarah can do is to use some simple skills that target her body’s reaction first, instead of trying to think her way out of feeling anxious. This is called a “bottom-up” approach.
Slow and pace your breathing. Remember that your breath quickens when you are anxious. When you slow down your breathing, you send a signal to your body and brain to be less anxious. This can look like taking a deep breath in, holding it in for a bit, and then letting that breath out as slowly as you can.
Ground yourself. Use your eyes to look for things in the space you are in, such as all the items in a room that are square shaped. Use your ears to hear the noises in the room. Touch the surfaces that are around you. When you ground yourself, you are reminding that anxious part of your brain that you are in a safe environment and your life is not in danger.
Use cold water. Go to the restroom to splash cold water on your face and hands. Hold a water bottle against the back of your neck. Bring an ice pack with you if you anticipate feeling anxious.
Move your muscles. If you can, get up and walk around quickly. Jog in place. If you can’t get up, you can squeeze your muscles, holding them tightly, and then release all tension.
After you have begun to lessen your anxiety with a bottom-up approach, you might be able to think a little more clearly. You can use some helpful thoughts to continue to reduce anxiety. Talk to yourself with kindness. If talking to ourselves harshly is viewed by our brains as a threat, then using self-compassion helps our brains to feel safer. Use the following statements as a guide:
“I am afraid, and that is normal.”
“No one likes to give presentations (or another situation), and I am not alone.”
“I can survive feeling anxious, and it won’t kill me.”
“This is just my brain thinking I am unsafe. I can use deep breathing to feel better.”
Keep practicing these simple tools. In time, you will be able to recognize more quickly when anxiety is creeping up and tame it before it spirals. The goal is not to get rid of anxiety, because we need our stress response to keep us safe when we are in real danger. The better goal is to change and manage the way that you respond to anxiety when it comes up.
For resources on anxiety and mental health, please visit Empowered & Poised’s Resources page.
Katherine LeCompte is a licensed social worker who provides therapy in an intensive outpatient facility in New Jersey. If you’d like to connect with Katherine, you can find her on Instagram @katherinelecompte13.
