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Episode 8: Addressing Anxiety
Chronic anxiety is a condition that can easily take over much of your thoughts. Anxiety is a common emotion, but it can quickly lead to a symptom filled life created by the fight or flight defense mechanism. Together we will go over where anxiety originates from, and the what you can do to protect yourself from a life of being stuck in defense mode.
[vc_custom_heading text=”In this episode you will learn:” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
[vc_custom_heading text=”Episode Transcript:” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
Welcome to Your Living Health, the podcast where we talk about real life strategies to reduce chronic inflammation. Each episode will uncover tools for you to lose weight and achieve optimal health. I’m your host, Carly Lucchesi, I’m a UC Davis trained registered dietitian and I’m also a life coach. Together let’s coach through the science of inflammation, but in a way that is simple, purposeful and fun.
You ready? Let’s Go!
Hey there! Today I want to talk about anxiety as a physical symptom that many of you experience on a day to day basis. But In addition to the physical sensation of anxiety, I also want to shift the way you think ABOUT your anxiety.
And where I want to start is by getting more clear on what this sensation IS in the first place. Anxiety is a feeling, and feelings are created by thoughts (or sentences) that we generate in our brains. Anxiety is a very common feeling, and when CREATED, it triggers the release of many chemicals, neuromodulators, neurotransmitters and hormones such as cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, thyroid hormones, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and more. Just like all feelings, when your brain thinks a thought… it creates a feeling. Then that feeling is FELT systemically through the process of your brain releasing a chemical cascade that works its way through every system of your body. Some emotions are intense, and others are mild, but each are felt through this same chain of events. Circumstance triggers thought, thought triggers feeling, and feeling triggers action.
So let’s talk a little bit about how you may process anxiety.
Many of you may give anxiety a lot of power over your life. You might think of anxiety as an intensely uncomfortable sensation to sit with, leading you to consciously avoid situations that may create more of it. Interestingly, your primal brain feels the same way about feeling discomfort, therefore your primal brain will also sub-consciously lead you away from these situations and instead guide you TOWARDS comfortable and safe alternatives. Consciously AND sub-consciously, there is often measures in place to avoid this feeling. Examples of what this may look like is having a snack or a sweet treat, indulging in some alcohol, watching a little extra tv, digging into your work, exercising a little longer each time, all of these actions INSTEAD OF allowing yourself to feel it completely. When you avoid anxiety, you might inadvertently be increasing the amount of damage this feeling may cause in your life.
Another way you may process anxiety is by resisting it. Anxiety can be a feeling that is felt acutely, or even chronically. Some of you may wake up with a low grade sensation of anxiety, and then frantically try to figure out what “caused” this anxiety in the first place. You may frequently judge yourself with thoughts like “what’s wrong with me” and “normal people don’t think like this” or even “if I were normal this wouldn’t even be an issue!” When you resist or push away this feeling, what might instead happen is this feeling fights back. Resisting may create more of a robust and intense version of the original sensation of anxiety. You may accidentally convert an acute event into a chronic feeling, one where you can no longer find the off switch. When you resist, you are creating a battle within yourself where you will lose 100% of the time.
The other way you may process anxiety is by indulging in it. You may be that person that wakes up with anxiety, potentially even as early as 3:00 am. You may recognize that you have it, and then go to work figuring out what you’ve done (or haven’t done) for it to be there. You may build a life where you are trying to outrun anxiety by thinking up every possible scenario and solving for them ahead of time. You may act from the space of anxiety and your actions will come across as frantic, nervous or inherently chaotic. You may even have anxiety over having anxiety, which will only work to increase the intensity, duration and frequency in your life.
But there is another option that I want you to work on incorporating into your day to day routine. This option is not intuitive, and this option will force you to live a more conscious and intentional lifestyle. What if instead of avoiding, resisting or indulging in your anxiety, you just ALLOWED it to pass through you. What if you recognized that the only thing creating this feeling was believing a sentence generated by your brain. What if you could allow yourself to breathe into the discomfort of watching your physical body react to the chemical cascade being generated. What if you didn’t make it mean anything about you, and just allowed it to remain an objective and neutral sensation. What if you remained in the truth of your biology, and found strength knowing that you have a body that wants to protect you. What if you remained in the truth that nothing external was causing you to feel this way, and nothing external can solve for it. Breathing into anxiety is the only way that you can process it fully WITHOUT allowing more harm to be generated.
But, there is one more thing that some of you may need to consider about your anxiety. It may sound a little out of right field, but I want you to truly consider this possibility. What if your body actually craved the chemical chaos of anxiety? The cortisol, the adrenaline, the epinephrine. What if consciously you want to get out of anxiety, but subconsciously your brain is driving you into those situations without regard. You crave the high. You crave the chaos. You crave what you want out of it. This is very common in careers that work in high stress environments. Once that anxiety response gets turned on, it can be hard to turn off, especially if subconsciously you crave it. But when you transition into leading a conscious and intentional life, this is a process you can watch, allow and begin to slowly back away from.
So I want to summarize some of these key points about anxiety, and how you can process it to reduce the physical symptoms and symptom manifestations.
For those of you who regularly experience anxiety, you are not alone. You may naturally feel anxiety more often than others, or you may fall victim to the influence of the culture we live in. This does not mean you are broken, this does not make you less worthy, or less valuable than anybody else. This is just your opportunity to embrace a natural discomfort of life, and find yourself stronger and more resilient on the other side.
If this has been helpful to you in any way, I ask that you leave me a review so that others can have easier access to this information. For those who have comments or ideas for future episodes, please take a few minutes now and type them out, I promise to read every single one. If you’re looking for some 1:1 guidance, head over to yourlivinghealth.com and book your free introductory consult. Again, thanks for your support of this podcast and I’ll talk to you soon.
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By Carly Lucchesi, RDChronic anxiety is a condition that can easily take over much of your thoughts. Anxiety is a common emotion, but it can quickly lead to a symptom filled life created by the fight or flight defense mechanism. Together we will go over where anxiety originates from, and the what you can do to protect yourself from a life of being stuck in defense mode.
[vc_custom_heading text=”In this episode you will learn:” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
[vc_custom_heading text=”Episode Transcript:” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:30|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”]
Welcome to Your Living Health, the podcast where we talk about real life strategies to reduce chronic inflammation. Each episode will uncover tools for you to lose weight and achieve optimal health. I’m your host, Carly Lucchesi, I’m a UC Davis trained registered dietitian and I’m also a life coach. Together let’s coach through the science of inflammation, but in a way that is simple, purposeful and fun.
You ready? Let’s Go!
Hey there! Today I want to talk about anxiety as a physical symptom that many of you experience on a day to day basis. But In addition to the physical sensation of anxiety, I also want to shift the way you think ABOUT your anxiety.
And where I want to start is by getting more clear on what this sensation IS in the first place. Anxiety is a feeling, and feelings are created by thoughts (or sentences) that we generate in our brains. Anxiety is a very common feeling, and when CREATED, it triggers the release of many chemicals, neuromodulators, neurotransmitters and hormones such as cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, thyroid hormones, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and more. Just like all feelings, when your brain thinks a thought… it creates a feeling. Then that feeling is FELT systemically through the process of your brain releasing a chemical cascade that works its way through every system of your body. Some emotions are intense, and others are mild, but each are felt through this same chain of events. Circumstance triggers thought, thought triggers feeling, and feeling triggers action.
So let’s talk a little bit about how you may process anxiety.
Many of you may give anxiety a lot of power over your life. You might think of anxiety as an intensely uncomfortable sensation to sit with, leading you to consciously avoid situations that may create more of it. Interestingly, your primal brain feels the same way about feeling discomfort, therefore your primal brain will also sub-consciously lead you away from these situations and instead guide you TOWARDS comfortable and safe alternatives. Consciously AND sub-consciously, there is often measures in place to avoid this feeling. Examples of what this may look like is having a snack or a sweet treat, indulging in some alcohol, watching a little extra tv, digging into your work, exercising a little longer each time, all of these actions INSTEAD OF allowing yourself to feel it completely. When you avoid anxiety, you might inadvertently be increasing the amount of damage this feeling may cause in your life.
Another way you may process anxiety is by resisting it. Anxiety can be a feeling that is felt acutely, or even chronically. Some of you may wake up with a low grade sensation of anxiety, and then frantically try to figure out what “caused” this anxiety in the first place. You may frequently judge yourself with thoughts like “what’s wrong with me” and “normal people don’t think like this” or even “if I were normal this wouldn’t even be an issue!” When you resist or push away this feeling, what might instead happen is this feeling fights back. Resisting may create more of a robust and intense version of the original sensation of anxiety. You may accidentally convert an acute event into a chronic feeling, one where you can no longer find the off switch. When you resist, you are creating a battle within yourself where you will lose 100% of the time.
The other way you may process anxiety is by indulging in it. You may be that person that wakes up with anxiety, potentially even as early as 3:00 am. You may recognize that you have it, and then go to work figuring out what you’ve done (or haven’t done) for it to be there. You may build a life where you are trying to outrun anxiety by thinking up every possible scenario and solving for them ahead of time. You may act from the space of anxiety and your actions will come across as frantic, nervous or inherently chaotic. You may even have anxiety over having anxiety, which will only work to increase the intensity, duration and frequency in your life.
But there is another option that I want you to work on incorporating into your day to day routine. This option is not intuitive, and this option will force you to live a more conscious and intentional lifestyle. What if instead of avoiding, resisting or indulging in your anxiety, you just ALLOWED it to pass through you. What if you recognized that the only thing creating this feeling was believing a sentence generated by your brain. What if you could allow yourself to breathe into the discomfort of watching your physical body react to the chemical cascade being generated. What if you didn’t make it mean anything about you, and just allowed it to remain an objective and neutral sensation. What if you remained in the truth of your biology, and found strength knowing that you have a body that wants to protect you. What if you remained in the truth that nothing external was causing you to feel this way, and nothing external can solve for it. Breathing into anxiety is the only way that you can process it fully WITHOUT allowing more harm to be generated.
But, there is one more thing that some of you may need to consider about your anxiety. It may sound a little out of right field, but I want you to truly consider this possibility. What if your body actually craved the chemical chaos of anxiety? The cortisol, the adrenaline, the epinephrine. What if consciously you want to get out of anxiety, but subconsciously your brain is driving you into those situations without regard. You crave the high. You crave the chaos. You crave what you want out of it. This is very common in careers that work in high stress environments. Once that anxiety response gets turned on, it can be hard to turn off, especially if subconsciously you crave it. But when you transition into leading a conscious and intentional life, this is a process you can watch, allow and begin to slowly back away from.
So I want to summarize some of these key points about anxiety, and how you can process it to reduce the physical symptoms and symptom manifestations.
For those of you who regularly experience anxiety, you are not alone. You may naturally feel anxiety more often than others, or you may fall victim to the influence of the culture we live in. This does not mean you are broken, this does not make you less worthy, or less valuable than anybody else. This is just your opportunity to embrace a natural discomfort of life, and find yourself stronger and more resilient on the other side.
If this has been helpful to you in any way, I ask that you leave me a review so that others can have easier access to this information. For those who have comments or ideas for future episodes, please take a few minutes now and type them out, I promise to read every single one. If you’re looking for some 1:1 guidance, head over to yourlivinghealth.com and book your free introductory consult. Again, thanks for your support of this podcast and I’ll talk to you soon.