Anxiety can be debilitating. It totally disrupts your life with its unpredictability. Not knowing when or if an anxiety attack will arise is another stress itself. If you experience any of these common anxiety symptoms, I want you to know that it is not your fault and the solution is much closer and easier than you think.
Does any of this sound familiar?
- Avoiding Social Gatherings or Events
- Agitation: when the sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive you might experience sweaty palms, shaky hands, rapid heart rate, and a dry mouth.
- Restlessness: an uncomfortable urge to move your body, excessive worry
- Irritability: along with muscle tension
- Trouble Falling or Staying Asleep
- Panic Attacks
- Fatigue or Tiredness
- Difficulty Concentrating
And that’s just a partial list. Many of these will also result in other challenges over time. Patching anxiety with Klonopin or Valium isn’t going to solve the problem.
Anxiety isn’t something you thought your way into or that you can think your way out of. That doesn’t diminish the value of mental health therapy in learning to understand and cope with anxiety. But, the roots of anxiety lie in an imbalance of your Autonomic Nervous System.
Anxiety isn’t your fault! It’s a natural long-term response of the nervous system to stress. That’s evident when you look at the rising epidemic of anxiety in this country.
Your Anxiety is NOT Your Fault! I know!
About 6 years ago I went through a very challenging time. As a chiropractor I recognized that my sympathetic nervous system was in overdrive. It disrupted every aspect of my life. In a short time, I was experiencing many of the symptoms above.
I was tired, had difficulty sleeping, didn’t want to be with people, and was experiencing a lot tension in my body. I recognized the signs and that started me on a journey to find strategies to complement my chiropractic care.
I researched how to modulate my Autonomic Nervous System. I looked at everything from biohacking to ancient practices. And, in the process I identified those practices that had a profound impact on my nervous system.
All the symptoms I was experiencing are a natural response of the body to an overload of stress.
They are all the result of your Nervous System reacting to stress with survival instincts. Your nervous system is hard wired for one thing above everything else. And that is survival. If your life were in danger then muscle tension, adrenaline, turning off digestion, no sleep, and a state of agitation would actually benefit your chances for survival.
Sympathetic Overdrive
Not everyone going through stress experiences anxiety. Some experience ulcers, others headaches and migraines. We all have our own weak areas that tend to express symptoms when under stress. Your body is doing what it is programmed to do to help you survive. We all have a tendency to express stress differently. For you, its anxiety.
Once this process gets going it can be difficult to stop. As the nervous system learns skills and patterns, they become easier and easier. In neurology we call this principle “Neurons that fire together, wire together”.
In other words, once your system is in Sympathetic Overdrive and you begin to experience anxiety or have panic attacks it actually becomes easier and more likely that you experience more of them. And, this also can make it seem progressively more challenging to get this under control.
Anxiety is Not Your Fault
So, if you’ve tried to control your anxiety but you feel helpless, you’re not alone and you’re not at fault. It’s your nervous system doing its job to protect you even if it doesn’t feel that way.
The more you fire off your ‘Fight-or-Flight’ system the easier and easier it becomes to activate. This is how our nervous system works. It’s a principle of neurology.
This might sound like it’s all out of your control but that’s not true. Knowing how anxiety develops leaves clues as to how to reverse it. That principle I just mentioned, “Neurons that fire together, wire together” is the key to undoing your anxiety. Just as the repetitive exposure to stress ‘wired’ you for anxiety, you can ‘re-wire’ your system for ease, safety, and relaxation.
Teach Your Body
Just as repetitive firing of your Sympathetic System led eventually to anxiety you can repetitively activate or fire your Vagus Nerve of the Parasympathetic System to rewire your nervous system to express safety and ease.
Vagus Nerve, Your Pathway to Wellness
If your Sympathetic Fight-or-Flight system is driving your anxiety then the answer is to rewire your Vagus Nerve and the Parasympathetic Rest-and-Digest system. Those systems – Sympathetic and Parasympathetic – counterbalance each other.
If the Sympathetic system is overactive then the Parasympathetic is underactive. The long-term solution is to raise the activity of the Vagus Nerve (Parasympathetic Nervous System).
When chronic stress over activates the Sympathetic Nervous System, it does a couple of things to your body.
- Over time you spend more and more time in Sympathetic activity.
- This Sympathetic state gradually becomes your baseline from which you live.
- With overactivity of the Sympathetic system there is a corresponding reduction in activity of the Vagus Nerve.
Your Nervous System is hardwired to respond to our world. And, our world is changing so rapidly that it often responds to stimuli that pose no danger. So, it’s not your fault! And, you can change it!
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