Stress and Anxiety

So what is anxiety?

Anxiety is also a normal reaction that we all experience at some point. For example it’s quite normal to feel anxious before an interview or a hospital appointment. Sometimes feeling anxious can be helpful, and enable us to perform well. However it becomes a problem when it persists on a regular or daily basis and affects our daily lives.

Anxiety can cause a variety of unpleasant feelings and thoughts. Many people worry excessively about bad things happening. They imagine the worst. They may panic. We may feel forgetful, irritable, struggle to relax and have poor sleep. Sometimes people feel they can’t switch off, are on edge and have a ‘racing mind’. Some people feel like they are loosing their mind, cracking up, losing control or going to faint. Many experience physical symptoms such as headaches, poor sleep, palpitations, dizziness, tense muscles and tummy problems and pain. 

There are various forms of anxiety. Health anxiety (excessively worrying about our health and that we may have a serious illness), social anxiety (fear of social situations like meeting people or speaking in public), GAD (where people feel anxious most of the time) and panic disorder – where frequent panic attacks occur. There are many common causes of anxiety. These include our personality, some people have an anxious personality type and have developed a tendency to worry. For others it may be bad experiences in life, stressful life events such as moving house, family breakdown or bereavement, financial worries, health worries and work pressure. For others they may be predisposed to it in, anxiety has a tendancy to run in families.

So why do we have these feelings? Well, as I said these are normal emotion that was originally there to protect us from harm. We sometimes call this the ‘flight, fright or fight response’ or ‘the alarm system’, which kicks in when something threatens us. Imagine how you’d feel walking down a back alley in the dark alone and hear footsteps behind you– that reaction you feel, your heart racing, muscles tensing, breathing quickening – they enable you to suddenly run fast which may be helpful in those rare circumstances, but not all day everyday. 

The pressures that we face on a regular basis can’t usually be helped by this natural response we have – we can’t fight or flee from debt, deadlines and stressful life events. The physical symptoms of anxiety can make us think there must be something physically wrong with us. But they are not dangerous and are in fact common. The long term effects of daily unchecked stress and anxiety can indeed lead to long term health problems such as high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, heart disease and strokes.

Anxiety can go on and on and can worsen throughout life if not addressed. We can get in the habit of worrying and feeling anxious. Sometimes certain circumstances or situations can trigger our anxiety. The feelings can quickly cause physical sensations which makes us think something must be wrong with us. This can worsen the fear and worry and so everything worsens. This is called the anxiety cycle which tends to spiral, sometimes out of control. A natural reaction to avoid this anxiety cycle is to avoid the places or circumstances that trigger it. Unfortunately, this ends up worsening the problem as well as really restricting our lives. And this is what can ultimately lead people to become isolated, avoiding work, school or even ever leaving their homes. 

While we can’t always switch off life stresses, or take a pill to cure anxiety (it’s not a disease that can be treated), there are many ways of helping ourselves and lessening the effects of anxiety on us. We’ll start with the simple but important ones which we can do to help ourselves. A healthy balanced diet, good sleep and some regular exercise are helpful.
Exercise – physical activity releases endorphins. These are sometimes called ‘natures happy hormones’ they improve mood and reduce anxiety.

Healthy lifestyle choices – alcohol and caffeine are often used by people struggle with stress or anxiety to help them cope or relax. Sadly neither are very helpful. Caffeine actually mimics some of the physical sensations of anxiety like tremor, rapid heart beat, sweating and can also make us feel on egde and jumpy and so can worsen anxiety. Alcohol can affect our brain chemicals which actually worsens our mood and heightens anxiety. Sugar interestingly can have a similar effect on some people as caffeine so is best avoided in excess.

Time management is important and can help prevent us feeling overwhelmed. For some people this means writing to do lists of essential and important tasks but also carving out a bit of time each day for a short walk, time of relaxation, a hobby or to see a trusted supportive friend can help. 

We all know the harmful effects of social media and excessive screen time on our mental health so it’s important to keep these I check. 
Because anxiety has a strong effect on our bodies like I’ve already mentioned, another very helpful tool is to practice ways to relax the body. This can be in the form of controlled breathing exercises, relaxation exercises and also deep muscle relaxation exercises. There’s more information about these at the end of this talk. 

Mindfulness is a very simple but powerful tool that can help us to gently shift our focus away from our own anxious thoughts, and instead on what’s happening in the here and now. Here’s a very simple example. Imagine you’re feeling very anxious, all sorts of anxious thoughts are in your mind, perhaps ones you have recurrently. Suddenly the door bell sounds, the postman is there needing directions. You chat briefly to him for a couple of minutes, explain to him where he needs to go and then he thanks you and leaves. I suspect you’d find in the couple of minutes, while you’re mind is focusing on describing directions carefully, you’re having less anxious thoughts. That is essentially because your mind is so focused on the present, on something else other than the anxious thoughts. Mindfulness teaches you helpful ways of living in the moment, of noticing and focusing on things around you. This helps keep you living ‘in the moment’ rather than living in your own anxious mind. There are some simple exercises that can really help to learn this. Keeping a thought diary for a couple of weeks to identify what our worries are and the effect they have on us is a very helpful tool in tackling anxiety. We can then look at and start to challenge some of our anxious thoughts, which can help them to settle. 

There are some really helpful self help guides that can explain these processes in more detail, which I’ve listed at the end. I won’t go into more detail now about these different talking therapy and relaxation tools now, but there is a separate short talk about them you can look at afterwards. For many people they need some extra help or support in addition to these more straight forward self-help tools. A lot of people benefit from some talking therapy. This is one of the many services offered by the Wellbeing service which you can self refer to. The details are at the end of this talk. 

Many people ask us about medication for anxiety. Anxiety is not an illness that can be cured with a tablet and for many people, the various techniques and support I’ve just mentioned are all that’s needed. For some people with more severe anxiety, particularly if there are other mood problems as well, we do sometimes use medication, such as anti-depressants along side the steps mentioned above. 

Goodbye.