A Case for Your Nervous System
If you are someone who struggles with physical manifestations of anxiety (increased heart rate, tight chest, sweating etc) here is something to think about: Are you working to prevent anxiety or simply trying to react to and manage it once you are highly anxious? I'm going to share one way that I help clients understand how to begin to manage their anxiety in a preventative way - with nervous system awareness and regulation. This is also relevant if you get stressed or overwhelmed regularly.
Often what happens in therapy is that I will hear about the moment that the anxiety became so unmanageable that it was either debilitating or highly uncomfortable. I'll hear things like, "and then I started crying out of no where" or "my heart just started racing and I felt like I couldn't breathe" or "I had to leave the meeting and pretend that I needed to make an urgent phone call because I had to be alone to calm down." Clients want to know what tools I can give them to manage that moment when they simply couldn't "fake" it anymore. And while there are tools for those moments, what I want them to see are all of the places throughout their day where they can implement these tools BEFORE the anxiety hits crisis level.
Maybe you can relate to the client who had to abruptly leave a meeting because she felt like she was getting close to a full blown panic attack…
If this, or something like this, has happened to you before, it might be useful to think about what the earlier part of your day might have looked like:
[ You were running late for work, had to literally run to catch the bus. You are flustered and out of sorts upon entering the office (at this point the sympathetic nervous system - fight/flight - has been activated, but you're likely not aware of that) // Someone undermined you in a morning meeting and you were really upset but unable to say anything in the moment. (Your blood pressure and heart rate have increased) // You received a text from your partner that was annoying and then proceeded to get into a 5 minute text-fight // A coworker asks you for a couple of last minute documents that are needed asap // You have to walk out of the high pressure meeting scheduled for the afternoon < ---- This is where you become aware of your physical anxiety symptoms.]
Most of us are going through the day on autopilot. If this is the case, you may not be aware of the affect that these other small stressors have had on you. One part of my job is to help clients increase their awareness of their body and themselves moment to moment (mindfulness) so that you are aware first thing in the morning when you're running late that, "oh, I'm feeling a little agitated" and you can choose to take a couple of minutes at that point (at the start of your day) to activate the parasympathetic nervous system - rest & digest - and calm down. You can see how it's really difficult to do anything about this unless you are aware in the moment. One way to increase this awareness is asking yourself some questions throughout the day. Some examples: "how am I doing?, what do I need right now?, am I breathing?" Also, notice your behavior: are you running around the office? Are you speaking rapidly, fidgeting or unable to be still? Notice your physical body: Is there tension, heart racing, heaviness in your chest?
Once you determine that you should probably take a preventative moment to yourself, the best tool in your toolkit is your breath. So, in our fictional scenario, you may have chosen, at any point before you entered that afternoon meeting, to go to the restroom or your office and sit for 3 minutes breathing deeply, inhale, exhale. You could go for a walk around the block. You could splash water on your face. You can avoid additional inputs and stimuli, aka looking at social media or responding to texts.
We mistakenly think that we'll take these moments for ourselves at the end of the day. "I'll relax when it's all done." But our nervous system doesn't work that way. The longer we wait, the more these stressors compound and then we need a whole lot more than a 3 minute breather. If you are consistently struggling with anxiety/stress/overwhelm it's likely that you are ignoring your bodies cues to take a breather. This is a big part of what I help clients do. I help them literally do it “experientially” IN the therapy session with me, as well as strategizing how to practice this outside of session. Fun fact! Dr. Robin Berzin the founder of Parsley Health - a functional medicine practice - actually prescribes 1 HOUR of parasympathetic nervous system engagements to her patients every day. For mental health. For physical health. It’s all connected.
If this is intriguing and you’re curious about working together, you can fill out the contact form here.
