Are you constantly worrying about the future? Are you afraid of what might happen, the ways in which you might fail or things might not go the way you want? Do you feel restless for no reason, or do you often feel that you cannot control this excessive worry? Do you feel irritable, tired, find it hard to concentrate in certain situations and experience mental fog? Do you feel tension in your body, muscle aches, stomach pains, nausea and restlessness along with these worries invading your mind?
These are all symptoms specific to anxiety, which, more often than not, interfere with our professional, social and academic life. Anxiety can prevent us from doing things to our potential, opening up to others and channelling our energy effectively.
I remember very clearly the times when anxiety had its say in everything I did, felt and thought. Starting from situations where I had to speak in front of an audience (in front of strangers, colleagues, even in front of friends and family), to the most mundane contexts (completing simple tasks, making routine decisions, having a conversation), my mind was overwhelmed by the eternal “what if” question (“What if I made a mistake?”, “What if I left a negative impression?”, “What if I don’t succeed?”). All these thoughts were followed by an avalanche of physical sensations, such as: stomach pain, muscle aches, high pulse, sweating, bloating, tremors, shortened breath and the so-called “mental fog”: the feeling of confusion where I could no longer understand what was happening around me. When all these physical sensations took over my body, my mind would start producing even more such questions, making me feel as if I were tightened and suffocated by a chain. In those moments, the only way out was to flee from that situation.
Often, I was overwhelmed by these sensations just by anticipating the various activities I had to carry out that day. I would wake up in the morning with a feeling of nausea and the reality is that it was not uncommon for me to vomit. The route to high school was a torment, day after day, and once I stepped through the school gates I would enter survival mode, where I hoped not to be asked anything and where I tried to remain as withdrawn as possible. And then… I preferred to be, from the start of the day, in a defensive state, refusing to socialise, to ask questions when I didn’t understand something, to voice my opinion in debates or even to argue my position when an injustice happened to me. Besides all this, the state of confusion or “mental fog” prevented me from concentrating, leading me to make careless mistakes or effectively not process the question being addressed to me. In social settings, the same story: I was quiet even with my closest friends, as I was overwhelmed by the question “If I do/say this, what will they think of me?”, and from this position I ended up letting them decide and take the reins of our friendship.
However, it wasn’t these thoughts and bodily sensations that kept me stuck the most, but the way I treated myself in those moments. As I found myself in an anxious state, I would start blaming myself because “I couldn’t manage to be different: more open, more uninhibited, more confident, more and more and more…” I was very critical of myself and felt guilty for all my reactions under the influence of anxiety. All this inner criticism prevented me from seeking help and resources, choosing instead to punish myself by depriving myself of: socialising, activities I enjoyed and even personal care. Recently, it has been a year since these memories truly became a thing of the past and I began to accept them with the compassion I was not capable of then.
From the thoughts that everything I do is wrong, insufficient and worthy of mockery, from the constant emotions of anger towards myself and others, not to mention the physical pain and the state of alert I felt in any context, I came to discover a free space within me from which I could look at all these inner processes. I could seek and understand their sources, without fear or avoidance. I managed to release many blocked emotions until I felt complete calm in all the storm within me and… self-love, even when my thoughts told me I didn’t deserve it. How?
© „The breath painting”, Annata Art
Through breathing and a lot of connection to nature.
Short, chest breathing only helps us enough to provide that minimum dose of oxygen so that our body’s organs continue to function and we survive, being the natural reaction in the face of danger. We receive stressors from all directions, and these are perceived as dangers. From the tasks we have to complete to the noise of the city, we are surrounded by elements that activate our “fight or flight” response. Chest breathing has thus become the way we have come to breathe almost every moment, maintaining a state of alert and stress within us.
The alternative to this way of breathing is diaphragmatic breathing. Unlike chest breathing, diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which connects the brain with the organs in the chest and abdomen. This stimulation leads, among other things, to a decrease in heart rate, which makes the body enter a state of relaxation, from which we can observe our anxious emotions and thoughts with more detachment.
Numerous research studies have explored the link between diaphragmatic breathing and stress [1], with the results indicating a significant reduction in negative emotions, cortisol (the hormone associated with stress) and an increase in attention.
A few minutes of diaphragmatic breathing, that is, from the abdomen, helps to reduce the heart rate (an increased rate is a symptom specific to anxiety), as well as to improve the general affective state [2], [3].
Next, I will describe the steps of diaphragmatic breathing:
- Lie down on a bed/sofa or even on the floor, where you feel most comfortable, in as relaxed a position as possible, with your knees bent;
- Place one palm on your abdomen and one on your chest;
- Inhale so that only the abdomen “inflates”, and the chest as little as possible;
- Exhale, bringing the abdomen back to its initial position;
- Watch how throughout this process, the hand on your chest remains still, while only the abdomen moves.
© Just Muscles
This technique represents, in itself, a resource in managing anxiety in the long term. However, specialised help should not be ignored. Anxiety is treatable, and as part of the treatment, psychotherapy is almost always needed, of which the most effective for anxiety disorders is cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Through this, we can get to know our anxiety, observe how it affects our lives, what the anxious thoughts are that consume us and how we feel when we have these states of agitation. By learning some simple practices, we can succeed in controlling these sensations and observing our thoughts, so that we manage to discern whether they reflect a real danger or represent an exaggerated reaction. The finality of this process of cognitive restructuring is the modification of these thoughts to reflect reality as closely as possible and not cause the feeling of fear and anxiety. Therefore, turning to a psychotherapist is a necessary step in treating any anxiety disorder.
There are certain situations where the support of a therapist is necessary even for the practice of diaphragmatic breathing. For example, people who have panic attacks should be cautious in using this technique during an attack, because, without a good mastery of the method, they will not be able to hold control over the breathing rhythm. These people are encouraged to seek the help of a CBT therapist and to practise the technique in moments of relaxation until they develop the skill necessary to apply this type of breathing in more difficult situations. [4]
Just as breathing helped me manage my anxiety symptoms much more easily, nature supported me in starting to accept and love myself as I am. During numerous walks in the forest, I began to listen to its rustle, to feel the moss on the logs with the palm of my hand and to smell, leaning to the ground, the damp earth after rain. The relationship I was nurturing with nature, spending at least a few moments daily contemplating it, experiencing it with all my senses, nourished me, in turn, with a feeling I had never experienced before. A sense of belonging, of protection, of unconditional love. The forest accepted me unconditionally, allowed me just “to be” in all my forms: in weeping, in dancing, in running barefoot, in howling and despair, in ecstasy and in silence.
There, in the space of nature, I was not judged by anyone and I no longer felt the need to criticise myself, as there was no social pressure to do things according to a certain standard.
This is how I learned to accept myself, to listen to myself and to see myself as enough, having as a model nature which welcomed me, which allowed me to be myself and in which I could explore myself as a unique individual.
© Soulglance
Physical activity in nature and the feeling of connection with it lead to an increase in well-being and an improvement in mental health. Studies show that physical activity in nature leads to a decrease in somatic anxiety (the sensations in the body associated with anxiety: muscle tension, stomach pain, diarrhoea, etc.) [5], and the feeling of connection with nature is correlated with low levels of generalised anxiety and negative emotions. [6], [7]
Thus, by spending a few moments in nature daily, observing it, experiencing it through all your senses, it is very likely that you too will be able to notice changes in your general affective state, ending up finding that much-sought-after inner peace more easily, and physical activities in nature will help you release blocked emotions and feel present and confident in your own body.
Although anxiety can lead us to build a story that we come to believe strongly, as if it were reality, the truth is that, gradually, we can step out of this cycle of worries. In this article, I have presented two extremely accessible resources that can help us in this process: breathing and the tranquillity of nature, and with the help of a psychotherapist, we can succeed in changing our story in unimaginable ways.
If you need a single impulse to show you that the story you are running in your mind does not reflect your potential, replace the thought “What if everything goes wrong?” with the following: “What if everything goes well in the end?” What would you do differently, then, in the process?
Let curiosity defeat anxiety.
Bibliography:
[1] Ma, X., Yue, Z.-Q., Gong, Z.-Q., Zhang, H., Duan, N.-Y., Shi, Y.-T., Li, Y.-F. (2017). The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults. Frontiers in Psychology;
[2] Steffen, P. R., Austin, T., DeBarros, A., & Brown, T. (2017). The Impact of Resonance Frequency Breathing on Measures of Heart Rate Variability, Blood Pressure, and Mood. Frontiers in Public Health;
[3] Chen, Y.-F., Huang, X.-Y., Chien, C.-H., & Cheng, J.-F. (2016). The Effectiveness of Diaphragmatic Breathing Relaxation Training for Reducing Anxiety. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care.
[4] William O’Donohue, Jane E. Fisher, General Principles and Empirically Supported Techniques of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, 2009;
[5] Franco, L. S., Shanahan, D. F., & Fuller, R. A. (2017). A Review of the Benefits of Nature Experiences: More Than Meets the Eye. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health;
[6] Lawton, E., Brymer, E., Clough, P., & Denovan, A. (2017). The Relationship between the Physical Activity Environment, Nature Relatedness, Anxiety, and the Psychological Well-being Benefits of Regular Exercisers. Frontiers in Psychology;
[7] Martyn, P., & Brymer, E. (2014). The relationship between nature relatedness and anxiety. Journal of Health Psychology.
Other useful resources about anxiety:
Anxiety – or about how everything is just “in your head” by Alina Șerban
