Anxiety and Panic
Anxiety rarely stays in the head. It shows up as a tight chest, a stomach that won’t settle, sleep that doesn’t come, a body that can’t quite sit still. Alongside it, a voice that second-guesses everything and is sure the worst is on its way. Some people describe it as a constant hum in the background, others as waves that arrive out of nowhere and leave them exhausted.
For many, it’s a feeling of always rushing and always being behind. Slowing down sounds good in theory, but in practice it brings impatience, an itch to get up and do something, or a quiet guilt about not doing enough.
Many people who come to me with anxiety know it well. They can often name what sets it off. What’s harder is that knowing doesn’t make it stop.
Where it often comes from
Sometimes anxiety makes more sense when we understand where it came from.
A child growing up with a parent whose moods were unpredictable learns to read the room, to notice the smallest shift in tone and adjust before anything happens. That attentiveness may have helped them feel safer. As an adult, the same alertness keeps running, scanning other people’s reactions, worrying when a reply takes too long, preparing for the worst version of every situation.
Anxiety can also sit where another feeling wasn’t allowed. If sadness was met with impatience or anger with withdrawal, a child may learn to push those feelings away. Anxiety can sometimes take their place. Underneath the worry there may be grief, anger, fear, even excitement that never had room.
How we work with it
Often we start by finding ways to help the nervous system settle, so there’s room to look more closely. From there, we get curious about what the anxiety might be protecting against, what it might be standing in for and what happens in the body when it rises.
Some of that happens by talking about the past. Much of it happens in the room, as the anxiety shows up between us, where it can be met differently.
The goal isn’t to argue or even wish anxiety away. It’s for the part of you that has been on alert for so long to find out it can rest or even find something it would rather be doing.
Panic attacks
For some people, anxiety arrives as panic, a sudden surge that peaks within minutes, racing heart, shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, a sense of losing control.
Panic attacks can be frightening but they are treatable. Because the physical symptoms can overlap with heart and other medical conditions, it’s important to have new or unexplained symptoms evaluated by a medical professional.