What is Anxiety and why do we feel Anxious?
Anxiety is a strong feeling of fear and worry. It can cause your heart rate to increase, a feeling of pressure over your chest, and it can make you dizzy, sweaty and nauseous.
Anxiety can also be expressed in many different ways as physical pain and negative thoughts. Although this does not sound very intriguing, having anxiety is something that us human are supposed to have, to a certain degree. From an evolutionary perspective, anxiety has helped us stay alive. It has kept us alert and ready to face danger and by that, kept us safe. But in today’s world we don’t need to worry about being attacked by a tiger in our sleep or that we will run out of food and starve – but we still feel anxiety, nonetheless.
Reasons we sometimes feel anxious today can be due to stress, being under a lot of pressure, growing out of relationships, fatigue, maybe an unwanted change of lifestyle, unbalanced gut and microbiota, unhealthy environment, unhealed traumas etc.
The feeling of anxiety isn't always easy to explain, and that's okay. Sometimes, we need to pause, reflect, and give ourselves time to understand and address our feelings. At times, it might simply involve allowing ourselves to feel, while other times, we may need to distract ourselves from the feeling of anxiety.
Here is a list of thing you can do when having the feeling of anxiety:
Write down your thoughts. Sometimes we create a cluster in our mind when we worry about something. Try putting your feelings in to words, maybe create a list of what it is you’re feeling – and when you see it all written down in front of you, maybe you’ll be able to see it all with different eyes.
Go for a walk and focus on what it is you are seeing with your eyes, how it smells, what the weather feels like against your skin. Sometimes it can be helpful to change environments and try to create some flow in your mind and body.
Turn on some feel-good music and shake! It might sound silly, but to actually shake your body is a way to clear your energy and mind and reconnect with your physical body. Check out this link to get a better understanding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8KPHf1boJ0
Talk to someone. Even if we like to think so, we are not always the smartest when we are feeling anxious. Sometimes it can be good to talk to someone else about what it is you´re feeling. It can be a family member, a friend, a spouse, a therapist. See what their opinion or take is on it? Maybe they can help you see things from a different perspective?
Dare to sit with your anxiety. Often, we want to distract our minds when we are feeling anxious which can be a very good way to distract yourself from what yo´re feeling! But sometimes it can be good to just sit with your feelings, remember that it´s natural and that this is a sign of a functioning brain. Breath through it and remind yourself that the feelings will pass.
Distract yourself. This may not always be the “right” solution but our anxiety can sometimes almost paralyze us and then doing something can clear our mind and give us some breath of air. Try a new recipe, bake a cake, listen to a feel good podcast, or put on a feel good tv-serie. Sometimes we need to “fake it”, laugh even though you may not feel like it, take yourself out of the loop of the feeling of anxiety.
We hope that these tips can help you whenever you feel anxious and remember, everything is going to be okay ♥️