Anxiety: The Only Way Out is Through

We therapists often like to provide our clients with ways to reduce anxiety and enhance our feelings of calm relaxation. There's nothing wrong with this, but it has the potential to become a vicious cycle. Let me explain.When we are feeling anxious, it's a result of the fight-or-flight response being triggered in our brains. Fight-or-flight is a necessary response in times of real danger. For example, if a lion is lunging at us, we want to feel nervous, become highly alert, and get the heck away from the scary thing.When the threat is imagined, however, the fight-or-flight response is more harmful than it is helpful. Imagine you're having anxiety about a work or school deadline. Our brains respond to this perceived threat similarly to how they would respond to something like a wild animal chasing us. Our heart rate increases, we sweat, we get hyper-focused on the thing that we're afraid of, and our mind races.This is what drives anxiety. Our fight-or-flight response is being activated at a lower level (except in instances of panic) for extended periods of time. Our initial response to this is to... wait for it... fight it. When we try desperately to relax and make our anxiety go away, we are literally fighting our fight-or-flight response, which only worsens our fight-or-flight response.Well crud, what do we do then?The answer lies in acceptance. This is not to say that you can never do anything to improve your anxiety, but you must first mentally accept that you are anxious. Learn to be OK with the anxiety and allow it to linger as long as necessary. Know deep in your being that anxiety can not kill you and will eventually pass, but that fighting it can only make it worse.Once you've let go of the desperate desire for your anxiety to go away, you will then be able to practice relaxation techniques more effectively. It's a bit of a paradox, I know. It's similar to the old wisdom that you won't find a boyfriend/girlfriend unless you stop wanting to find one. Anxiety doesn't fully go away until you stop desperately wanting it to go away.This is one of the reasons that mindfulness meditation is so powerful. It is nothing more than the act of paying attention to your inner experience without judgment or a desire to change it. By not wanting to change your anxiety, a pleasant side effect is often that your anxiety will go away.Learn to accept your anxiety and make friends with it. It sounds strange, but it's ultimately the only way to truly be free of it.Lowering your anxiety is still a great regular practice, particularly when it comes to exercising, eating right, and making sure you sleep enough. I'm not saying you need to make yourself anxious, you just need to practice being fully OK with it existing. Once you start with that foundation, everything else will fall into place much easier.