Anxiety can hide in plain sight in today’s busy world. If life’s hectic and you’re juggling a lot of commitments, overthinking and continually anticipating problems can seem natural. You may regard feeling tightness and tension in your body, and having difficulty putting your feet up, as ‘a bit of stress’.
But the reality is that it could be anxiety masquerading as you coping well under pressure.
Symptoms of anxiety such as scanning for potential problems and physical tension are signs of your nervous system trying to help you deal with life. You may not be consciously aware of it, but your nervous system is trying to keep you safe in this modern world.
Psychological research shows anxiety is closely linked to the body’s threat systems which is designed to protect, rather than harm, us.
The drip, drip of hidden anxiety
If you compare anxiety to a tap left to drip into a sink, the constant drip, drip can build up over time to become a significant issue. The steady activation of stress hormones can become exhausting for the body. It can show up as a sense of being ‘wired’ which oddly makes you feel like you have energy, even when the reality is you’re being depleted.
This ‘drip, drip’ effect means you may not have noticed the progress of anxiety encroaching on you. It might have passed you by that you are finding it increasing difficult to relax.
This is because once anxiety levels are raised, just calming down rarely works. Your nervous system senses danger and it’s going to stay on alert. Chances are activities like scrolling social media, watching intense TV shows or bingeing box sets feel like they are relaxing. But they’re actually keeping you stimulated and fuelling your anxiety. You might recognise this in yourself, or you might only be noticing it now.
A safety mechanism, not personal failure
Anxiety isn’t a personal failure. It’s the most common mental health issue and today’s lifestyles are helping to fuel it. We live in a world that’s focused on extroversion, celebrates perfection and is increasingly dictated by technology. These factors together with challenges you may be dealing with at home, work or socially can all add to the ‘drip, drip’ effect.
It can be really valuable to remember that anxiety’s role is to keep you safe. Anxiety’s not a show of weakness. Are you able to take some time to think about which factors could be having an impact? Small tweaks to your lifestyle can help create a shift in your relationship with anxiety.
Some questions that it may be useful to reflect on include:
What are the symptoms I’m experiencing and what may be causing them?
What does my anxiety seem to be protecting me from?
What might be supportive to my nervous system at the moment?
If you would like to learn more about anxiety, how it affects the brain and the different types of anxiety disorder, you can read the previous parts of the Anxiety Series using the links below:
2. The Science Behind Anxiety.
3. The Different Forms of Anxiety.
