Where does anxiety come from?

Anxiety is a normal and natural response to a perceived stressor. When humans are scared, we often experience a physiological response called “fight, flight, or freeze.” This means that when our brains perceive something that we think is a threat, our bodies respond to protect us. We experience an impulse to run, to hide, or to stay frozen in place to protect ourselves from danger. This was extremely helpful to us when we lived in caves and had to fight off saber-tooth tigers. It was evolutionarily advantageous for us to be prepared for whatever is around the corner and to assume it has teeth. If we didn’t have this instinct, our ancestors wouldn’t have survived!

Unfortunately, our brains haven’t quite adapted to modern society. So now, this psychological response has turned into anxiety. For example, if we have a piano recital coming up, we might start to experience a barrage of anxious thoughts. What happens if I mess up? What if I trip on stage? What if I fail miserably and everyone sees? We start to imagine all the things that could go wrong, and we assume the worst case scenario. Our brains are spitting out thoughts that could be helpful in preventing the danger of humiliation or embarrassment. The thing is, they often aren’t helpful. Does imagining ourselves tripping on stage help us perform better during the piano recital? It might inform our choice of shoes, but it won’t help us feel prepared or confident.

You might be thinking, “how come we don’t just experience anxiety about important things?” A piano recital isn’t exactly a life or death situation, so why are we feeling anxious about it? It’s helpful to think about the purpose behind anxiety when it arises. In this scenario, it isn’t life or death. But the anxiety IS actually about something that’s important: social perception. And this was definitely vital to our survival as a species in the past.

Stress in the Modern World

There are many sources of stress in the modern world that can be overwhelming. We are surrounded by digital stimuli that demand our attention, such as emails, games, and social media. “Push notifications” have changed the way we engage with these stimuli, and the ease of our devices makes it hard to create digital boundaries for ourselves. Our attentions are more fractured than in the past, and our brains are used to multitasking and digesting loads of information at once. We’re also constantly bombarded by images and content, which can be overwhelming for our brains and lead to self-doubt, FOMO, comparisons, and burnout.

Experiences related to your stage of life can also create stress. If you’re a teenager or college student, you might be feeling stress finding a job or applying to schools. Or you might be experiencing what many other single people are: struggling to navigate the online dating scene and finding yourself feeling stuck, uncertain, or anxious. Current events also have been prompting more anxiety for people over the last few years, especially with the rise of political and social discord, climate change, and violence. There are a lot of things that can stress us out right now. Therapy is a good space to check in and create goals for managing stress.

Perfectionism

If you have perfectionistic tendencies, you can likely benefit from therapy. Perhaps you notice yourself engaging in negativity, high levels of self-judgment, or criticism. Or maybe you are consistently disappointed in yourself or others, or experience disorienting waves of hopefulness and hopelessness. Although at times your dedication to achieve might be helpful, it may also manifest liabilities like holding yourself or others to impossible or unrealistic standards.

You can change your relationship with your perfectionism by engaging in mindfulness: taking a closer look at where it’s showing up in your life, determining what perfectionistic impulses are helpful or unhelpful to follow, and committing to a balance of compassion and accountability. Clients who struggle with perfectionism often find it helpful to trace the origins of their perfectionistic tendencies. Through understanding why you do what you do, you have choices. You are able to realize when you’re moving through an outdated pattern and instead build a new, positive pattern. Therapy is a safe space to manage your perfectionism and stop feeling controlled by it.

What can we do to manage anxiety?

To manage our anxiety, it’s necessary to change our relationship with anxiety. Not to erase anxiety, but to learn how to work with it and use it to our advantage. Anxiety isn’t bad when it shows up - it’s actually a clue that we’re nervous about something that’s important to us. Anxiety can sometimes motivate us to take safety precautions, plan ahead, or meaningfully reflect. Other times, anxiety doesn’t serve us.

The first step in managing anxiety is noticing where anxiety is coming up, and what is triggering it. Then we can ask ourselves, “is this anxiety important to listen to?” Sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes it’s no. If it’s not important, I then encourage clients to “thank” the anxious thoughts for arising (because our brain is only trying to help!). If we just try to ignore the thoughts or don’t do the work to be mindful of them, they tend to become more persistent. As you get more skilled in flexing your mindfulness muscles, you’ll begin to notice patterns. “Oh there’s that old anxiety about tripping on stage. I already have comfortable shoes picked out, I know that thought never serves me.” This process of being mindful of your thoughts, changing your relationship with them, and unhooking yourself from them is called “cognitive defusion.” It is a concept used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help manage difficult or unhelpful thoughts.

I also utilize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques such as cognitive reframing to help clients manage anxiety. Sometimes we are able to use rational thinking to help change our thoughts. To continue with the piano recital example, say you’ve performed 100 other piano recitals. Your concern about tripping on stage might be because you tripped at one of your recitals. You could try to reframe your fear by changing your perception. Rather than focusing on the one time you tripped, think about how you didn’t trip the other ninety-nine times. Or maybe you can remind yourself that tripping isn’t the end of the world. So what if you do trip? What would happen? You would probably feel embarrassed, but then that would pass. It won’t result in a catastrophic failure that your brain is amping it up to be.

Therapy is the perfect space to take control over managing your anxiety and stress. The process of therapy itself can be cathartic to those struggling with anxiety, and you can learn more positive ways to cope with your anxious thoughts. You don’t need to feel controlled by your anxiety anymore!