Anxiety

What happens when the nervous system forgets how to switch off

Anxiety is such a common malady and one I see very regularly. It is also an experience I have had myself many times. But now rather than examining the rationale or the stimulus so to speak I am more interested in exploring the physiological and somatic experience.

What are the most common symptoms and experiences. If you examine the phenomenon rather than the story certain sensations appear again and again. There is tightness in the chest. Sometimes around the breastbone, sometimes through the ribcage or lower in the diaphragm. It can extend down into the psoas and create deep tension and pain in the hips and lower back.

All of these areas are highly reactive to how the nervous system responds. We call it the sympathetic response or more commonly known as fight or flight. This is a deeply ingrained survival instinct to danger. Very misunderstood and also very necessary.

A physical threat to our wellbeing appears in our life. The brain interprets how serious it is and based on this deep animal instinct the body prepares to save itself. Attack physically. Get as far away as possible. Or appear unthreatening, almost play dead. This is all very natural and helpful under the right conditions.

But in modern life there are rarely obvious predators to save ourselves from and yet our bodies perceive threat in the most unlikely places. What you begin to realise is that our bodies are constantly responding to our thoughts as if we were facing a predatory animal. Our bodies prioritise certain physical functions and slow down or switch off others. Our whole biochemistry changes and normal function either stops or slows down. When this mode is on more than it is off the nervous system begins to normalise the experience and create a new normal for daily operation. Over time this can create all sorts of physiological alarm bells or symptoms. Live like this long enough and no wonder people get sick.

The nervous system does not differentiate between the external physical world and the internal cognitive one. Looping thoughts about the future in particular create tension. Repetitive background thoughts about survival keep the sympathetic response active and do not let it switch into the parasympathetic, rest and digest. This response is greatly underrated and misunderstood as simply doing nothing. You are to a degree doing nothing but you are also allowing the body chemistry to shift, the deep musculature of the body to relax and the body to nourish and heal itself on a cellular level.

Without this in our lives and without the body memory of what it is to truly rest we can get stuck in what I have begun to see as a state of hyper vigilance. We are on. Scanning the horizon. Activated. Cortisol on. Adrenals activated. Muscles tightening, holding, bracing, getting ready. Leave this long enough and you have a tightly wound spring ready at all times to jump. This is what we label anxiety. The inability to get out of the loop. Stuck and our physiology tells us so.

Just as the body can wind itself up it can do the opposite. We can show the nervous system it is safe and allow it to settle. There are many routes to this. Breath, mindful practices, meditation, yoga, qigong and the list goes on. But they are tools not the outcome. Sometimes the system is so hardwired that it will see anything that is not its current state as a threat. To relax can feel tormenting or completely disorientating. So we need to find the right modality, the right dose and repeat until the system can relax into it and learn to move in that direction. This is essentially what acupuncture is doing. Giving time and space for the system to reorient its default response. Eventually leading to the ability to transition between states coherently and with skill.

It is not about never seeing the world as a threat. It is about being able to discern and glide between responses. To sleep better. Eat better. Digest better. Rest better. And in that lies the true secret of health and longevity. What ancient practices codified and what got a little lost along the way is now becoming clearer for what it really is.