Are you listening to your body?
Our norm now is anxiousness. We are on edge with uncertainty and fear that we don’t know where to go or who to trust. Yet, the person to go to to get the information that is currently happening in our present is us. We just need to listen and accept the answer.
Sometimes always finding the logic or the “why” to everything going on isn’t always the right thing to do. Let me ask you a question: if you had the answer to the "why" right now, would it change anything? Probably not. You would still feel the same and you would still be struggling with the same symptoms.
Anxiety training (I call it this because it is training, not a cure) is the process of listening to our bodies, finding ways to self-soothe, and accepting the answers it gives us. Our bodies take in so much sensory information that we don’t give it credit for and we are almost shocked when our bodies give us this feedback. We shut it down, tell it to move on, and never address it again. This is where I think anxiety attacks and panic attacks come in full swing.
In my prior post, I mentioned that not dealing with emotions will eventually come back and not in the ways we would want them to. Anxiety/panic attacks are one way. If you experience this overwhelming sense of panic, anxiety, and your body starts to become overwhelmed and in overdrive from no apparent trigger, you may be suppressing some emotions within your body.
Therapy addresses these underlying roots and helps you explore these suppressed struggles, but you have to learn to manage the symptoms before you dive into the deep end. So let’s learn how to swim first:
LISTEN.
I’m talking about your body sending signals to your brain and start with the simple. If you feel restless like you have the urge to get up and move, MOVE! This isn’t going to make the anxiety go away but there is tension being built up and your body needs a way to release it.
Focus on the body part, one at a time.
If your chest is hurting and feeling like it has pressure, try yoga positions that open up the chest and take big deep breaths while you hold the stretch. This isn’t going to address the anxiety but it will help you manage a symptom. Your body is holding tension in this area, let's help it release it.
If your mind is racing, create some rewarding mental stimulation instead of just the “distract yourself.”
Find something that brings pleasure, don’t just think about something else. Create something else. Try something creative, commit to something that you haven’t in a while, and focus on what you do have control over. A majority of the time our ruminations center around the things that are out of our control and thinking about them doesn’t change that outcome or predict the future. Focusing our mind on something that takes time and focus will allow our brains to relax from the constant stimulation of circling the same problem.
Anxiety is like riding a wave. Once anxiety is “on” you cannot turn it off. You have to ride the wave. The more you resist the longer the wave. Resistance can look like, “I’m fine”, continuing to think about what is bothering you, or numbing the symptoms. Acceptance is learning to listen to the answer your body is trying to send you: I’m anxious. This is a normal emotion and we need to accept this answer. We don’t have to like it, but we must accept it.
Remember the purpose of anxiety is our body telling us to “pay attention”. So let’s practice the skill of paying attention to our body first and together we can take the next step towards balance.
