Let’s Talk About Anxiety

WHAT CAUSES ANXIETY AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

Without anxiety, the most frequently occurring psychological problem, you wouldn’t be here. Deprived of that state of arousal called “fight or flight,” your ancestors would have fallen victim to everything man eating, including other hungry humans or humanoids, lacking the wherewithal to exert themselves at critical moments. The alternative, in other words, to fighting or fleeing would have been falling victim to external threats. And fight-or-flight is Ground Zero for anxiety.

I need to get physiological now, for a little necessary background:

The tense and panicky feelings we are all familiar with have their roots in the development of our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). The ANS maintains a situationally mediated physiological equilibrium, in theory to help you respond adaptively to any given situation. In other words, it automatically changes the state of your body whenever what’s happening to you suggests that you need it changed.

Let me explain how that nervous system works: (We actually have more than one nervous system, but the one of concern here is the Autonomic Nervous System) The ANS has two opposing parts that work together in opposition to each other to bring you what it “thinks” you need, from moment to moment. One part, the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS), is responsible for getting you prepared to deal with dangerous situations by evoking the fight-or-flight response I just mentioned. When the brain perceives a state of danger, the neurotransmitters adrenaline and to a lesser extent, norepinephrine are released, causing the physiological part of fight-or-flight.

To see the original adaptive advantages to this system, imagine yourself living in prehistoric times and being chased by a saber toothed tiger. Your SNS causes you to perspire profusely so you become more slippery and therefore harder to grab onto. You get increased blood flow to your legs and arms (away from your digestive system) to maximize quick movement, making a physical escape more possible. Your heart beats much faster and respiration increases for the same reason. (If you’ve ever had a panic attack, you are quite familiar with those symptoms.) When you’re safe again, the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) kicks in. The SNS neurotransmitters are stopped and in their place, the PNS facilitates the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, increasing blood flow for digestion, slowing down respiration and heart rate and stopping the profuse perspiration. So the Autonomic Nervous System, through the situationally specific release of neurotransmitters, creates the physiological state it “believes” goes best from situation to situation. And now you know why anxiety can ruin a good meal!

That’s how it works in theory.

The problem is that the SNS sees no difference in validity between internally generated information and saber toothed tigers. A difficult thought is as influential as a physical danger. So your upcoming public speech, the state of your bank account, anticipation of a first date, and your big meeting with your boss all trigger the same kind of ramped up neurological response because your SNS acts as if there is a real “danger” present in your life. And imagine living on a prehistoric savannah where you happen to run into saber toothed tigers all the time. It’s likely that all those confrontations will have a cumulative effect on you over time. You will turn from a relaxed, mellow cave person into someone who is often, if not always, in an anxious state of vigilance, conditioned to default to expecting danger. Frequent stress leads to an overly active fight-or-flight response, i.e. anxiety.

A present day example would be dealing with a family member with a rage problem. If you had one such person in your life, it would not take long before you were always feeling to some degree tense and unsafe, in expectation of the feared rage.

In addition, some people are more afraid of tigers than others; we differ from one another in our natural tendency to react to potentially threatening stimuli because of differences in temperament, which is with us at birth. (If you have children or siblings, you likely have noticed that one has always been more tense and reactive than the other.

The good news is that because the Autonomic Nervous System responds to internal cues, we can internally change the way our neurotransmitters work by either modifying our thinking or doing things to influence the release of SNS neurotransmitters directly. If I am convinced that the thing I was afraid of is really not a significant threat to me after all, I can likewise convince my SNS to hold back on the adrenaline and norepinephrine.

The principles of cognitive behavior therapy can be effective in facilitating more adaptive and realistic attitudes toward things we have become used to seeing as threats. Changing conditioned, irrational fears to more reasonable expectations can produce less SNS and more PNS. Meditation, yoga and other relaxing practices are also effective in getting you to a more relaxed “normal.” Therapists generally have a bag of tricks to help promote relaxation that you can easily learn and implement. Additionally, if there are issues in your past that are not sufficiently resolved, they may be affecting you unconsciously, so working them through in therapy can release you to a calmer state.

Another source of anxiety, which I have alluded to a great deal in my writing, is the state of our culture, Overuse of electronics, rampant dehumanization, political obsession and fears rooted in the very real turbulence of our current world can all make you want to fight or flee. Spiritual and psychotherapeutic techniques can be helpful in facilitating a change in how you relate to all those stressful things.

If you have a particular problem or situation, please email me with it. I may be able to help!

Dr. James Kraut

My passion is to help guide you if you have chosen to look profoundly into the questions of your life. My goal is to help you get to the point where your existence on this wonderful planet has become a richer, deeper, and more meaningful process. Every story is unique and I would love to learn about yours.

Our Services