Anxiety — The Truth Behind It
The mysteries of understanding and dealing with anxiety
A Scenario
You open your eyes, looking frantically straight up, left and right, trying to make any sense of the surroundings that encase you. Nothing but darkness lies, only a strand of lost light transcending from a window in one far corner. You instantly realize the familiarity of this room, your room. You must have woken up in the middle of the night, but something does not feel right. The darkness is too much, brooding almost, overflowing endlessly. Something is definitely off.
Ah, yes…
The power must have gone off.
You take a deep breath in this pitch silent blackness and close your eyes to relax, when-
Clink!
A metallic sound shoots through this aura, startling you to infinity and catches you entirely off guard, spiking your vitals momentarily through the roof.
What was that?
You wonder in unknowing-ness.
An insect?
A rat may be…
You continuously ponder of the vivid possibilities.
Who or what is in my room?
But you cannot find a definitive answer, as it all lies engulfed behind an un-penetrable wall of darkness. You take another deep breath of calm.
It is probably nothing!
Clink!
Louder this time and you sit right up on your bed. A sudden jolt in your body switches it all into well above one-hundred percent alertness. The uncertainty of what might be lurking out there starts to rise.
What is in my room!?
The answer to it you are still afraid to go and see, as the darkness is only helping it hide, cloaking everything under a deep field of unpredictability. You do not know what’s out there, and you don’t want to find out. So you sit idly, waiting to get attacked by this darkness at any moment. That is precisely when an entire flood of fear rushes in. But fear is never alone, as it is accompanied by your brain shooting into complete overdrive. And ultimately with it arrives the big bad boy who has been missing all along, anxiety.
Quickly your body stiffens, tensing up your entire muscles, increasing your heart rate to double, turning up the breathing with it as required oxygen levels shoot to an all-time high. You desperately want to know what’s out there, predicting a vicious reveal at any moment, yet being entirely uncertain of it. Minutes have passed maybe, but they feel like hours in suffering, and each further second in this highly anxious state becomes close to an eternity. It is not stopping, and you are afraid that it won’t ever stop. Looping endlessly… trapped hopelessly… never to end.
A Deep Dive
Anxiety; the core feeling of it isn’t something entirely new to us. Upon thought, each of us can surely come up with our own experiences with anxiety as I did in the abovementioned scenario. Feeling anxious is undoubtedly a big part of our lives; an intricacy of being human in fact, a mere evolutionary response to stimuli like fear and happiness. But why does it really happen the way it does? What real truths does anxiety hide? Can it be overcome? That is all that we are here to find.
On a whole, the feeling of being anxious can be simply described as a sense of uneasiness, nervousness, worry, fear, or dread of what is about to happen or what may happen. Now, the keywords to focus upon are “what’s about to happen” or “what may happen”. This tells us that anxiety is driven mostly by anticipation, precisely by threatful or ambiguous anticipation, meaning that the feeling of not knowing, of being uncertain is the true force behind all kinds of anxiety that we face. Let it be generalized anxiety, OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder), or PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder), these are the most common types that our whole population faces, and they all have uncertainty riddled within their wretched cores.
But why are we discussing anxiety now, hasn’t it been around in our lives for ages? Why is this needed all of a sudden? Because, although anxiety has been existing since the dawn of our civilization, it has never been spreading this fast as it’s doing in the current day and age. In 2020 alone, women experienced an almost 28% increase in anxiety disorders while men saw rises up to 22% worldwide (source mentioned at the end). I agree that the Covid-19 pandemic shares a big reason behind this increase, but have we ever stopped to ask why in the world am I being so anxious suddenly? What is causing it all?
Well, the true reasons range from having a traumatic childhood or facing a deeply negative experience in your past life, suffering from domestic abuse which is sadly common even in today’s world, all the way to other simpler reasons like being shy or having low self-esteem that is bound to cause social anxiety disorder. Regardless of whatever the reasons may be, the common symptoms of anxiety can quickly manifest inside of your body. And whenever we get under stress, it all kicks in like a punch to the gut. The tensed-up muscles, heightened breathing, feeling of getting suffocated or being choked, heart rate skyrocketing, all this combined becomes almost like an immediate response to any stressful situation, a reflex even. It is horrific, isn’t it? The worst part is that it all feels uncontrollable and helpless. But why does anxiety entails such vivid symptoms at all?
This would be the correct time to introduce an old friend, fear.
Yes, fear is the absolute root from where feelings like anxiety stem. All the mentioned symptoms of anxiety are actually symptoms of grave fear, but only arriving in a stressful ordeal rather than in any real threatful situation. This ambiguity amidst these feelings now forces us to realize the actual difference between them, which is that fear is an intense biological response to immediate danger while anxiety is an emotion regarding the uncertainty of things we think may happen (or never happen). There is a thin line, but there is a line.
Now, even after the distinction between them seems clear, the symptoms somehow remain the same, haunting us when we expect it the least. But can we do anything about it? Can anxiety be cured?
Unfortunately, anxiety is incurable, being the lone reason why it is so widespread in our world. But fortunately, each of us possesses every tool necessary to control anxiety whenever it barges in and hits us with a bag full of uncertainty. What should we do then?
Just follow the simple five-step rule that I would be mentioning below.
But before I start explaining them, let us first head back to our original scenario for help.
So there we were, in the middle of wicked darkness enveloping, our minds overloading with activity, our bodies tensed up in fright, waiting for our uncertain future to attack. It is excruciating and numbing, the feeling of being severely anxious. What should we do then?
Identify —
The very first thing we need is to identify what actually is surrounding us and what situation we are in. For our above case, we initially have to realize where we are, which is inside our own room. We are in darkness due to a fairly common power cut. We hear some sounds that we are uncertain about. This entirely comprises our present situation.
Accept —
The next important step is to accept our current physical and mental shape, realizing that we are tensed and in a truly anxious state. This will only be possible after identification. We need to truly accept that we are feeling anxiety to its fullest.
Breathe —
No matter the stressful situation that arrives, no matter how anxious we get, a simple act of deep breathing never fails to do wonders in calming. We are in pitch darkness, our heart is racing, and knowing that we are quite anxious, we take a deep breath inside. We hold it and count to five, then gently release it all. We repeat this five continuous times and see the immediate difference.
Reality check —
Once our head is becoming clear, our breathing is controlled so as our pulse, the next step is to perform a quick reality check. Do I really need to be anxious right now? Does this situation account for such a reaction? Yes I am in darkness, but I am not in some wilderness! I am in the safety of my own room, nothing can attack me, no one is out there with vicious intentions. And all this does is start a positive feedback loop which should further calm our senses.
Reflect —
Now our body has grown normal, we can think clearly, see clearly. This is the time to reflect. Why did this make me so anxious? What if another similar situation arises again? This is when we should decide to actively learn from such experiences, concluding to control our anxiety if such situations come ever again. If we find ourselves alone in the darkness, scared even, we should realize that just like the last time, there is no point in feeling anxious. That is all.
Once applied, the mentioned steps can certainly help us in controlling our anxiety for whenever it arrives. Let it be any kind of a stressful situation, we have now successfully learned how to deal with anxiety in easy five steps.
But what about long-term solutions to avoiding anxiety at all. Are there any? Can I avoid ever being anxious throughout my entire life? Fortunately, the answer is “Absolutely yes!”
Steps to Avoid Long-term Anxiety
- Exercise and exercise regularly. Develop a routine that suits you, our bodies are specifically designed for physical function, do not run from it, run towards it. Exercise is an incredible stress reducer.
- Avoid alcohol and recreational drugs. This really needs to go without saying, but such substances can actually cause or even worsen anxiety. Ditch them if you can!
- Cut back caffeinated beverages, and quit smoking will you? Both these things are a major contributors to anxiety.
- Include breathing exercises in your daily routine. Don’t think, just do it. Meditation, yoga, and visual techniques, all can significantly ease anxiety.
- Fix your sleeping schedule. (Yes, the most cliché advice of all!) Prioritize sleep any way that you can. If you cannot sleep then identify the cause of it (there will be one), and take help from professionals if need be. Sleep is direly important.
- Eat healthy. Living on fried chicken, French fries and burgers isn’t gonna cut it. Vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, all contribute to a healthy diet. Involve them daily in your meals if you can.
- And don’t be afraid to talk. Share your experiences, and find out if you are possibly suffering from any such disorder of anxiety. Involve friends and family for support. Talking is good, talking is healthy!
I agree all these points maybe be a lot to keep track of at once. But remember how everything starts, just focus on one single thing first and see the immense difference yourself.
Ending note
Gone are the days when anxiety used to control us, now is our turn to tame it. We will no longer fall prey to the breathlessness and helplessness of it all, it is our mind which encapsulates our reality, and our entire life in a shell. We have control over it, we have always had. But sometimes we forget that the tools we need to live a better life are already with us. We just need to remember and learn how to use them. We just need to remember!
Hope this deep dive into anxiety; what causes it and how to deal with it, eventually helps your life in some way or the other, making it better even. For my aim has always been to help others the best way I can and that is through my writings.
Thank you for sticking with me till the end, and I sincerely wish for you all to stay safe and have a great life ahead. Until next time!
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