Helping people turn trauma into purpose through learning to be present.

How to overcome Anxiety, being Present.

Hello and welcome to The Present Method, where we help people turn their trauma into purpose. Managing our symptoms of anxiety is a large part of that process. The Present Method helps us accomplish this by…

1. Helping us understand what anxiety is, where it comes from and what drives it.

2. Helping us understand how to combat it effectively.

3. Helping us improve our ability to overcome and handle stressful, anxiety-inducing situations effectively.

  1. What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is what a person experiences when their fight-or-flight response becomes overly active. This excess activity is most commonly due to stress. Stress that extends beyond a few moments or hours and into days, weeks and months.

What are some signs and symptoms?

  • Having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom

  • Having an increased heart rate

  • Feeling nervous, restless or tense

  • Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation)

  • Sweating

  • Trembling

  • Feeling weak or tired

  • Trouble concentrating or thinking about anything other than the present worry

  • Having trouble sleeping

  • Experiencing gastrointestinal (GI) problems

  • Having difficulty controlling worry

  • Having the urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anxiety/symptoms-causes/syc-20350961

2. How do we overcome Anxiety?

Now that we know a little bit about anxiety. We should move onto the second question, how do we combat it effectively? As those who experience Anxiety know, it’s a whole person problem. We have phyiscal symptoms such as tension, aches, pains and sleep disturbance. We have psychological symptoms such as excessive worry and overthinking. These physical and psychological symptoms can even impact personality. We can find ourselves being overly self-judgmental, struggling with seeing the positives and giving up on our goals. We can find ourselves being overly risk-averse as the lack of control associated with risk is too intimidating. As we can see, the cause of anxiety is relatively straightforward. The effects however, are viral. Touching every aspect of our person. How do we tackle such a big issue? Well, in the same way we eat a cow, one bite at a time.

The Foundation

Overcoming anxiety is like building a home. We need different components in order to build and occupy. The first thing we need to do is regulate our mood. This is the foundation of the home. Without a good foundation, the home will collapse. Likewise, without a stable mood our attempts at overcoming anxiety will fail. The four horsemen of mood stability include diet, sleep, water and exercise. We need to make meaningful changes to our lifestyle to deal with anxiety effectively.

The Frame

Next we need to have the frame or proper attitude. This involves paying attention to the present moment, be patient, calm and open. Meditation helps us develop this mindset as we’re encouraged to cultivate these attitudes during guided sessions.

The Furnishings

Perseverance

The most important quality to cultivate is perseverance. Perseverance is important as we need to persevere to resist the pull to overthink and be “in our heads”. When we don’t resist the pull to overthink, we can find ourselves spiraling. Dwelling on our stressors potentially leading to catastrophizing (making things bigger than they are). Imagining potential future outcomes of our stressors (which most likely won’t happen).

Self-compassion

Cultivating self-compassion helps us become less self-critical. When we’re less self-critical, we become less afraid and therefore less worried.

Gratitude

Cultivating gratitude helps us become less anxious as we can focus on the good in our lives right now. This draws our attention away from our feelings of worry and onto the positives.

Courage

At times we may need to face our stressors and take some sort of action. Our initial reaction may be to avoid dealing with the stressor(s).

Honesty

Along with courage, there are times where we may need to be honest with ourselves or others. This may require confronting an unpleasant truth(s) that we may have been avoiding.

Humility

Trying to meet standards that are unrealistic can cause a lot of stress and Anxiety in our lives. Pefectionism can be fatal to our well-being if it isn’t tempered with humility and an honest appraisal of our and others’ capabilities.

Curiosity

We need to be open to other possibilities or avenues for happiness.

3. Applying The Present Method to Anxiety

Sleep Disturbance

The sleep disturbance that is so common with anxiety is due to the increased level of arousal caused by the excess of Adrenaline and Cortisol in the blood stream. Your body is quite simply "too excited" to enter a deep, restful sleep. In order to address this issue, we need to have a consistent sleep-wake cycle. Creating and committing to a sleep schedule is priority 1. The body needs structure, it's up to us to create that structure. Avoid heavy, sugary food before bed. Caffeine must be avoided after 3 pm. We also want to turn off all electronic devices at least 1 hour before bed time. The light from the screen(s) WILL impact your sleep.

Difficulty Concentrating

Individuals with anxiety struggle with concentration as their physiological resources are being divided. A portion of their resources are being used to concentrate. The other portion is being used to maintain their symptoms of anxiety. More succinctly, the energy they need to concentrate is being sapped by their body's level of arousal being elevated. Exercise helps metabolize the stress-related hormones that drive difficulties with concentration. As Adrenaline and Cortisol are metabolized more effectively and efficiently issues with concentration will lessen. Sleep and diet are also relevant as they determine whether we have the energy to exercise.

 

Fatigue

The fatigue people experience with anxiety is once again due to their body's increased level of arousal. The more stress a person experiences, the higher the level of arousal, the less energy a person has to get through the day. Lowering your body's level of arousal involves making improvements to our lifestyle. Improvements that include changes to your sleep schedule, exercise and diet. 

Aches and Pains

When the body's level of arousal is elevated, Adrenaline and Cortisol are released into the bloodstream. When the levels of Adrenaline and Cortisol reach a certain saturation level; the body senses an invader and trips an autoimmune response. This autoimmune response begins attacking the body. Sometimes randomly, causing a person to experience aches and pains.

When they go to the doctor to see what's wrong, the physician often times cannot find anything and the symptoms are written off as psychosomatic. Which is code for "in the person's head". This couldn't be further from the truth. The pains are physical, the source is simply unconventional. Reducing aches and pains involves lowering the level of inflammation in your body. Once again, lifestyle improvement will help solve this problem.

 

4. How many people suffer Anxiety?

GAD affects 6.8 million adults or 3.1% of the U.S. population, yet only 43.2% are receiving treatment. NIMH: Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Women are twice as likely to be affected as men. GAD often co-occurs with major depression. https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/facts-statistics#Facts%20and%20Statistics

5. What is the connection between Anxiety and Depression?

So far we've stated that both Anxiety and Depression are driven by the fight-or-flight response which is caused by stress. How are these two related? The best way to describe their relationship is to consider a physical illness. When we contract some sort of serious illness, we often have to take action before it becomes worse.

It is much the same with anxiety and Depression. All things being equal, anxiety will turn into depression if it's not dealt with effectively. We know that anxiety occurs when a person's level of arousal is elevated. Depression occurs when that level of arousal increases even more. This is why they are co-morbid (appear together). Understanding that these two phenomenon are really different stages of one problem is essential for effective treatment.

 

6. Why do some people experience Anxiety and others don't?

There are a lot of factors that go into whether a person develops anxiety or not. Some of them are...

  • How reactive a person's nervous system is. This is mainly genetic. If you have a nervous system that is more sensitive to external stimuli. You have a greater chance of developing anxiety.

  • How many stressors you have and how intense they are. Think difficult schoolwork vs. a chaotic home life.

  • How well you take care of yourself. Do you eat healthy, exercise? Etc.

  • How well you manage your stress. Do you have activities and routines that make you happy and promote stability?

Irritability

The irritability people with anxiety experience is due to their constantly feeling "up" or "on edge". This is due to the excess of Adrenaline and Cortisol in their bloodstream that is driven by stress. Diet is the priority here. A diet that is high in fiber and protein (check your food labels!) will cause your blood sugar to stabilize allowing mood to improve. Sleep is also a factor (please see the section on sleep disturbance)

 

Get Out of Your Head and Into the Present!

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