You may have a good job, supportive people around you and no obvious crisis taking place, yet still wake up feeling anxious.
Your heart may race. Your stomach may tighten. You may feel hot, shaky, tense or constantly on edge. You might find yourself asking, “Why do I feel anxious when there is nothing actually wrong?”
Anxiety does not always begin with something happening in the present moment. Your mind and body can also respond to accumulated stress, anticipated problems, remembered experiences and patterns of thinking that have gradually become associated with threat.
The feelings are real, even when the cause is not immediately obvious.
Anxiety is part of the survival system
Anxiety begins as a protective response. Your brain and nervous system are continually processing information and assessing whether something may require your attention or action.
The amygdala is one part of the wider brain system involved in identifying emotionally important information and helping to activate a defensive response. When a situation is interpreted as threatening, the body prepares you to act. Your heart rate may increase, muscles may tighten and your attention may become more focused on possible danger.
This is commonly described as the fight, flight or freeze response. It is extremely useful when immediate action is genuinely required. The difficulty arises when it is activated too frequently, too intensely or in situations where there is no immediate physical danger.
Modern threats are often emotional or psychological
Most of us are not regularly facing direct threats to life. Modern stress is more likely to involve:
- Financial pressure
- Work demands
- Relationship difficulties
- Health uncertainty
- Conflict or criticism
- Responsibility for other people
- Fear of failure
- Rejection or judgement
- Loss of control
- Anticipating something going wrong
These situations may not be physically dangerous, but they can still be interpreted as threatening. Your body can also respond to something you are remembering, imagining or anticipating.
You may be lying safely in bed while mentally rehearsing tomorrow’s meeting, replaying a difficult conversation or predicting everything that could go wrong. There is no physical emergency in that moment, yet those thoughts can still activate a genuine physical response.
That is why anxiety can continue even when you consciously know you are safe or that the situation is unlikely to be as bad as your mind is predicting.
Why does anxiety feel so physical?
Anxiety is a mind-body response. It affects how you think and feel, but it can also produce very noticeable physical sensations.
Common symptoms include:
- A faster or more noticeable heartbeat
- Feeling hot or flushed
- Shaking or trembling
- Muscular tension
- Tightness in the shoulders or jaw
- Stomach discomfort or nausea
- Changes in digestion
- Dizziness or light-headedness
- Restlessness
- Difficulty sleeping or switching off
These symptoms can be unsettling, particularly when they seem to appear without warning. Sometimes the physical feeling itself then becomes the next perceived threat.
You notice your heart beating quickly and wonder why. That thought increases your anxiety, which intensifies the physical response. You then notice even more sensations, and the cycle continues.
The swan effect: calm above water, paddling underneath
Many people become extremely good at hiding anxiety.
They appear capable, calm and completely in control. They continue working, looking after other people and meeting their responsibilities. Underneath, however, they may feel like a swan paddling constantly beneath the surface.
They may manage anxiety by:
- Overpreparing
- Planning for every possible outcome
- Staying constantly busy
- Avoiding certain situations quietly
- Seeking reassurance
- Replaying conversations
- People-pleasing
- Checking and double-checking
- Trying to control every detail
- Putting pressure on themselves to cope
Because they continue functioning, other people may have no idea how much effort daily life is requiring.
You do not have to be visibly falling apart for anxiety to be affecting you.
“I am just a worrier”
One of the most common things I hear is, “I have always been a worrier. It is just who I am.”
When a pattern has been present for a long time, it can begin to feel like part of your personality. You may describe yourself as an anxious person, an overthinker or someone who always expects the worst.
Worrying, however, is something the mind has learned to do. It is not your entire identity.
Your experiences, environment and repeated ways of thinking may have taught your mind to anticipate problems, look for danger or prepare for the worst. The more frequently that pattern is repeated, the more automatic and convincing it can feel.
Familiar does not mean permanent.
The brain is capable of learning different responses. As you begin changing the way you interpret situations, respond to thoughts and manage physical sensations, the way you feel and behave can begin to change as well.
Anxiety can become a self-perpetuating cycle
Anxiety is often maintained by understandable attempts to prevent or control it.
You may avoid somewhere because you are worried about feeling anxious there. The avoidance gives immediate relief, but it can also reinforce the idea that the situation was dangerous or that you would not have coped.
You may repeatedly ask for reassurance. This can help briefly, but the anxiety returns and requires more reassurance. You may monitor your body for signs of anxiety, making every sensation more noticeable. Or you may try very hard to stop thinking, only to find that the effort keeps your attention fixed on the thought you want to escape.
None of these responses means that you are doing anything wrong. They are attempts to feel safer. The problem is that short-term relief can sometimes keep the longer-term anxiety going.
Why telling yourself to calm down may not be enough
Most anxious people have already tried telling themselves to relax.
You may understand logically that you are safe and still feel tension running through your body. You may know that your thoughts are unlikely and still become caught up in them.
That is because anxiety is not always maintained by conscious reasoning alone. Simply saying, “There is nothing to worry about,” may not change an automatic emotional and physical response that has been repeated many times.
Therapy can help you work with both sides of the pattern: the thoughts and expectations of the conscious mind, and the automatic responses that can happen before you have had time to reason with them.
How can hypnotherapy help with anxiety?
Hypnotherapy can help you reduce physical activation, change habitual thinking patterns and mentally practise responding differently.
During hypnosis, attention becomes more focused and the body is often able to move into a calmer state. Therapeutic suggestions can be used to help you:
- Feel safer and more settled physically
- Reduce automatic threat rehearsal
- Respond differently to anxious thoughts
- Build confidence in your ability to cope
- Become less frightened of physical sensations
- Allow thoughts to pass without following every one
- Develop a calmer response to previous triggers
- Mentally rehearse future situations more positively
The aim is not to remove every uncomfortable emotion from your life. Anxiety has a purpose, and everyone experiences it at times. The goal is for the response to become more appropriate to what is actually happening, rather than taking over when you are not in danger.
Anxiety is not weakness
Feeling anxious does not mean you are weak, incapable or failing to cope.
In many cases, the response has developed because your mind has been trying very hard to protect you. It has simply become overprotective. It may be treating uncertainty as danger, thoughts as warnings and physical sensations as evidence that something is wrong.
With support and repetition, your mind and body can begin learning that you do not need to respond to every thought, sensation or situation as though it were an emergency.
When should physical symptoms be medically checked?
Anxiety can produce powerful physical symptoms. However, new, severe, persistent or worrying symptoms should not automatically be assumed to be caused by anxiety.
Speak to your GP or another appropriate healthcare professional when you are concerned about your physical or mental health. Hypnotherapy can be used alongside appropriate medical or psychological care, but it does not replace necessary medical assessment or treatment.
You do not have to remain “an anxious person”
A familiar way of thinking can begin to feel like part of your personality. It is still a pattern, and patterns can change.
Hypnotherapy can help you work with the mind-body response that maintains anxiety, develop a greater sense of internal safety and begin approaching situations with more calm, confidence and perspective.
Personalised hypnotherapy sessions are available online or at my private Wilmslow therapy practice. Contact Cheshire Hypnotherapy to arrange an initial consultation. You can also view current appointment fees before you book, or read what happens in your first hypnotherapy session.