Anxiety is in your body, not your mind

This touched a chord. For me it's a combination of both music and dance.

It's amazing to feel emotions I'd normally not want to express in everyday life and just let them flow out. Rage, jealousy, lust. The music is such a great trigger to tap into these primal feelings, and then expressing them through movement just feels incredible. It feels real and amazingly cathartic, but the transience of the experience leaves no consequences.

I guess that's why there's the saying dance like nobody's watching. Because for many people, that expression of feeling strips us down and leaves our feelings exposed and vulnerable .

> Anxiety comes from a lack of competence, confidence, or self-awareness.

This is oversimplified, anxiety isn’t just about social situations. My anxiety is none of these but comes from an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality.

I don’t feel like I’m going to die today or tomorrow, but the knowledge that I will die one day and wipe out all memory of me as I am now is permanently terrifying to me. I really believe that almost everyone else has some part of their brain to suppress this fact, that I am missing.

It works even for physical pain. The way I see it, wanting the pain (or the anxiety) to go a away creates tension, which adds to the existing issue. You then want the tension and original pain to go away, so add on more tension… and it gets worse and worse. Not only does tension itself lead to pain in the long run, but if you tense around a painful place, you also immediately make it more painful.

By accepting the original issue, you are left with it only, and not all the added tension, which is much more bearable.

> As Stephen Porges, PhD, a psychologist and the creator of the Polyvagal Theory

Funny. Just yesterday I googled "polyvagal theory" after accidentally stumbling upon it after googling for "HRV training" after hearing about it from Tim Ferriss on his youtube channel.

Anyway - a quick research yielded that PVT and Mr. Porges are both rather questionable. [1]

> The thinking brain isn’t what decides whether we’re stressed, whether we’re feeling threatened or challenged, whether we’re going to turn stress on, whether we’re going to turn emotions on,

I'd question that and bring thought loops forward as a counterexample. You can very well intensify a state of anxiety by dwelling on some thought.

> So if you want to track your anxiety, your body, not your thoughts, will be your most accurate map.

That is true, though - after all anxiety is a physical sensation. I can attest to that waking up now for several weeks almost every day with stomach aching, increased heart rate and shallow breathing.

> The problem is that when it comes to regulating our nervous system after a stress response (read: anxiety), our thinking brain is the absolute worst tool for the job

I'd also questin that. It's true that the thinking brain on its own will never find a solution for something like anxiety. But you need the thinking brain to identify the problem and come up with a solution. If the thinking brain is a hammer then your guts are a screw driver.

> talk therapy analyzing all the reasons you’re anxious, this is probably a hard pill to swallow. Not only did all that talking not do much to alleviate anxiety, but it could also even have made it more acute.

Talk therapy addresses the thinking brain and is hence limited. But a good talking therapy is not just being experienced by exchanging words. If the therapist is worth her money she'll connect on an emotional level.

> Is there any role for talk therapy, or trying to think logically about your anxiety? Absolutely. But only once your body is regulated, Stanley says: “After we have helped our survival brain feel safe and stable, then we can work on our thoughts.

This attitude is symptomatic of our misguided medical profession which always seeks to compartmentalize and modularize instead of integrate and connect. Both approaches can go very well hand in hand.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvagal_theory#Criticism

I personally think this was a very interesting reading, and after having tried multiple solutions for anxiety (prescribed pills, talk therapy, tips like focusing on our environment -- as explained in the highlighted paragraph), and being surrounded by people having also tried several solutions, it must be known that not everyone will react the same way to each of them.

While the content of this article will not make everyone agree, I think it's particularly important nowadays to pay attention to our mental health at least as much as we do to our physical health, and it's good to see this topic trending on HN.