Where Does Anxiety Really Come From?

It's Not Just Overthinking

Read time: 2 mins

Welcome to The Brain and Body Warrior.

A blueprint of lived lessons to help you understand your brain, conquer your body and develop your warrior mindset.

On today’s menu: The misunderstood source of anxiety.

“The rational brain cannot abolish emotions, sensations or thoughts.” - Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps Score.

What if the source of your anxiety isn’t just your thoughts?

What if it’s not a case of simply “overthinking everything” or “just being dramatic”?

What if the source lay somewhere else?

Modern psychology, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in particular, has given us the notion that our thoughts are the foundation of how we experience the world.

Change your thoughts, change your life. That’s the essence.

Partly true. Certainly useful in the right context.

But you and I both know that’s not the full story.

My years of suffering, of trying to quietly wrestle with the frightening intrusive thoughts my brain was bombarding me with, of desperately trying to overpower and change them, are testament to that.

Something was missing.

But what?

The true source.

You see, it’s not just our brain that remembers what happens to us. Our body does too.

Our psychological scars, including severe trauma, are embedded into our biology as much as they are into our mind. We feel them. Silently. Often unobtrusive. But they are there.

It might take the form of a tightness or a tension in different areas of your body. Or a heaviness or crushing weight. It’s different for each of us.

Whatever it is, though it often lingers unseen by you, it’s not something that your brain misses.

That’s because our brain, our overseer and protector, is always on high alert for danger. That’s how we survive.

The problem is though these physical manifestations of our lived pain are taken as a sign that something isn’t right. Your brain feels the need to react.

Cue the alarm bells. The crushing panic. The overwhelm. The pain and discomfort that begins to wash away rational thought.

Basically, anxiety or similar feelings of discomfort, or even hyper arousal, are often our brain’s reaction to these physical sensations because it thinks we’re in danger.

So, simply ‘changing your thoughts’ doesn’t really accomplish much when your body is reacting, often in state of overwhelm or panic, to the danger it thinks it can feel.

Instead, one of the keys, I discovered, is “learning to observe and tolerate your physical reactions.”(An idea that Bessel Van Der Kolk, a psychiatrist and trauma expert, discusses at length in his book, The Body Keeps Score).

The first step in this process is obviously awareness.

Most of us, and definitely in my case, aren’t even consciously aware of the sensations of our body. We are too distracted. Overwhelmed. Consumed by the external.

The second step is training yourself, and your brain, to tolerate the discomfort when it arises, and not react to it.

Both of these can be accomplished by finding a good mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness practices, including breathing practices and even straight up meditation, are some of the best tools for dealing with anxiety and overwhelm.

Steady, controlled breathing keeps your body in a parasympathetic state. As such, you are able to more readily sit with discomfort. To tolerate it more and more as time passes.

Simultaneously, being mindful also teaches you to find, feel and acknowledge your bodily sensations as they arise. External distractions are removed.

Results aren’t instantaneous. It takes commitment. I can tell you.

You also need to find the practice that works for you. But with time and practice it can make a big difference. It did for me.

Now, when I notice the psychical feelings that use to set of the alarm bells in my head, which for me is usually tension in my jaw and a heaviness in my throat and chest, I don’t react.

I understand what it is and where it comes from. I can sit with. I know it will pass.

The overwhelm, fear and panic is gone.

With practice, this is something you can no doubt accomplish too.

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