The Anxiety Solution Read online

  When I talk to people about their anxiety they often tell me that they don’t want to make a fuss, or that they feel bad because they know there are so many others with worse problems. They believe they ought to be able to pull themselves together. All this puts extra strain on them and makes them feel more anxious.

  The first thing to say is that, if you are suffering, then there is a problem and you deserve to get help. If anxiety or worry or panic affect your daily life or are causing you distress, please don’t suffer in silence.

  If you suspect you may have anxiety it’s essential to have it diagnosed by your GP. They will be able to help you decide if therapy or medication is a good option, and also distinguish anxiety from other issues such as depression.

  Secondly, all anxiety is normal – you’re certainly not ‘abnormal’ if you have it. Some people experience persistent anxiety no matter what is going on in their lives. For others it’s triggered by certain situations such as social events. Other people will experience temporary spells of anxiety, for example when going through a big change in their life or before an exam.

  You can’t self-diagnose anxiety but, in the interests of being clear about what we’re talking about, it may help you to know that anxiety is basically an umbrella term to describe uncomfortable, nervous thoughts and feelings, often about things in the future. It typically also has physical symptoms, even though it’s primarily thought of as a mental health issue. As well as a sense of dread or irritableness and trouble with concentrating, anxiety can make you feel dizzy, sick and exhausted. It can give you palpitations, tense muscles, stomach problems and trouble sleeping. If you’ve had symptoms such as these for at least six months then your doctor might well diagnose anxiety.

  The way that anxiety most typically expresses itself is in worrying. We all worry, of course we do, but if you are thinking about actual or potential problems in a way that regularly creates anxiety, then worry has got out of hand. Worrying is a problem if it feels uncontrollable and stops you from focusing and enjoying life. Maybe you find yourself persistently coming back to the same train of thought again and again. Worry can also be called rumination, over-analysing or overthinking. It’s one of the primary symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

  The other definite warning sign that something is wrong is if you have feelings of panic. A panic attack is a sudden and overwhelming feeling of intense anxiety caused by a huge rush of adrenaline. You might experience palpitations, shortness of breath (hyperventilation), dizziness, tingling in the fingers, shaking or sweating. Usually the symptoms pass after 5–20 minutes. Panic attacks feel terrifying but they aren’t actually dangerous and can’t hurt you.

  If any of this chimes with you, make an appointment to see your GP right now. The Anxiety Solution gives you a whole lot of powerful techniques to manage anxiety and get your life back, but it needs to be used as part of a programme of medical or therapeutic care.

  You don’t have to stay anxious

  If you’re one of the millions of people who are suffering, fortunately there is a lot you can do to help yourself. This book is stuffed full of practical suggestions and techniques you can use to manage and diminish your anxiety.

  Many of my clients come to me feeling that their anxiety is out of control and that, unless their whole life changes. they will never feel better. I help them to see this is not the case. We can make changes to the way we think that allow us to cope with things we previously felt were overwhelming. And it’s usually much easier to change ourselves than it is to change our external environment. After all, unless you pack it all in and go and live in a cabin in the woods (and sometimes that might be tempting), then your unreasonable boss is going to remain a fact of life. So is social media. There is no getting away from the need to make decisions, and a certain amount of life stress is inevitable.

  Having said all that, it’s important and empowering to remember that you have more options than you may realize. If your relationship is making you miserable, for example, you have the option to leave. If you cry in the loos at work every day, maybe you should hand in your notice. These decisions might cause you anxiety but it’s important to remember that, sometimes, changing your external environment is the shortest way out of long-term anxiety.

  But whatever our circumstances, if we want to feel better, we have to be the ones that change. Only then will our lives change for the better. We have to clean up our thinking and adjust our perspective so we can approach modern life calmly. We may not be able to control everything that goes on in our life, but the good news is that we do have control over how we respond to events. When you really grasp the truth of this, the power flows back into your hands.

  What causes anxiety?

  Anxiety is a natural and normal phenomenon. When human beings were evolving we needed the fight-or-flight response to help us escape from dangers or fight for our lives. These short bursts of adrenaline (and the anxiety and panic they bring with them) kept the species alive. These days, in our society, we live in much safer times. There are no wild bears, and no alien tribes attacking ours. The problem is, the amygdala – the part of the brain that triggers the fight-or-flight response and is responsible for our emotions – didn’t get the memo. It misinterprets everyday challenges and irritations – from giving a presentation or flying in an aeroplane to receiving a large bill in the post – as life-or-death situations. Then it fires up our survival response, pouring adrenaline into our bloodstream and making sure we’re on high alert. The feeling of nervousness or butterflies in your stomach is a result of your brain directing blood flow away from your digestive system and towards your limbs so that you are better able to run away or fight, as required. Excessive worrying is another survival mechanism gone wrong. Worry is designed to help us be on high alert for the worst-case scenario but when it becomes a more or less permanent state of mind, it can profoundly damage our mental health.

  That’s the general explanation but, of course, some of us are more prone to anxiety than others. The factors that lead to an individual developing anxiety are practically limitless. On its own, knowing the particular events or circumstances that caused you to become anxious probably won’t be enough to change how you feel, but self-knowledge can be a powerful first step to lessening the grip anxiety has on your life. It might be that you can’t pinpoint the cause of your anxiety. That’s also fine. You can still take steps to overcome it.

  Here are some possible causes for anxiety:

  Genetics plays a role, although genes only ever create a predisposition, they don’t cause anxiety. In an area of science called epigenetics, scientists have discovered that your lifestyle, your behaviours and diet can make genes either turn on or off. So even if you think you might have inherited a predisposition towards anxiety, there is a lot you can do to help yourself.

  Childhood and upbringing definitely play a part. As children, we are very impressionable and we learn ways of thinking, feeling and behaving from observing family members and from our experiences. Perhaps you had an anxious parent and you learnt to worry by copying them. Or you might have had a critical parent for whom nothing was ever good enough. From this you learnt to be overly self-critical or a perfectionist. Or maybe being overprotected meant you grew up without learning how to cope with challenges on your own.

  Stressful life events and trauma in your past can affect your current situation. Things such as your parents’ acrimonious divorce, the death of someone close to you, experiencing abuse or being involved in an accident can all be highly stressful and traumatic experiences that leave you feeling unsafe, fearful and uncertain. In this context, anxiety is partly a protection mechanism to try to keep you safe in the future. You may have taken on board the belief that you must worry or be on high alert in order to be safe. Even seemingly less significant things such as a humiliating experience at school could contribute to anxiety.

  Your lifestyle is a huge and often underestimated factor. Not taking care of yourself, not
getting enough sleep, eating poorly and not taking any exercise could lead to or make anxiety worse.

  Long-term health problems or chronic pain can contribute to anxiety.

  Big life changes such as getting a new job, buying a house, getting married or experiencing a break-up could cause an increase in stress that leads to anxiety.

  Alcohol or drug use or abuse or side effects from some prescription drugs can bring on anxiety or make it worse.

  Whatever the causes of your anxiety, please remember: it’s not your fault and you’re not stuck with it. Change is always possible. In fact, change is inevitable because nothing stays the same and, as human beings, learning and progress is innate to us. You can do this.

  Are we getting more anxious?

  The latest research shows that a higher proportion of young people are reporting mental health problems (including anxiety) than ever before. But does this mean that anxiety is more of an issue, or is it simply a more recognized condition?

  It’s been suggested that millennials (born 1980–2000) have grown up with some new factors that might account for their sky-high anxiety levels. They are often described as the ‘over-protected generation’. Generational demographer Neil Howe characterizes their baby-boomer parents as ‘helicopter parents’, hovering over their children, ready to intervene – or interfere! – should the child need anything. Studies have linked helicopter parenting with increased rates of anxiety and depression in children.9

  Being close to our parents is a wonderful thing, but the flip side of that closeness is that we may be unable to function as adults ourselves, preferring to defer responsibility to authority figures when we’re stuck. And our parents’ fear can rub off on us. If you’ve been warned to ‘be careful!’ often enough, it’s easy to grow up thinking the world is a dangerous place. Due to a psychological phenomenon called ‘confirmation bias’, you’re likely to unconsciously seek out evidence for the things you believe are true. If, unconsciously, you are sure that potential tragedy lurks around every corner, your brain scans your environment for evidence to support this. It can mean you’re constantly on high alert, expecting something bad to happen. This plays havoc with your stress response. When your adrenal glands are producing too much cortisol – one of the stress hormones – you end up feeling permanently anxious.

  Another big problem with being overprotected is that our failures are prevented before they’ve even happened. We are the first generation to grow up with mobile phones, which means that parental advice and support are never more than a few seconds away. But if you don’t feel able to make decisions alone, if you’ve been protected from making mistakes or experiencing rejection, you won’t have learnt that failure is OK and that you can overcome setbacks. The result is a fear that if something bad does happen, you won’t be able to deal with it. The truth is than you are stronger, wiser and more capable that you think. This book will teach you to trust yourself more, so a lot of that anxiety will fall away. Again, all these things are learnt, not innate, which means you can unlearn them.

  The trouble with social media

  It’s been suggested that another reason for the increase in anxiety among young people might be that we are the first generation to have grown up with social media. Never before in history have we known so much about what other people have, do and look like, from their perfectly arranged breakfast bowl of oats and acai berries to their ‘effortless’ bikini bodies, as evidenced by a string of sweaty-yet-sexy gym selfies. What we see in the media and online is a constant stream of carefully curated shots of fabulous holidays, amazing career achievements and yoga-honed bodies. It can end up adding fuel to the fire of self-doubt and perfectionism when we compare our lives, and bodies, to others. Because, for most of us, our biggest fear is that we are not good enough.

  Being constantly connected to social media can become addictive. Research says we check our phones up to eighty-five times a day.10 That’s a lot of potential for added stress and information overload, not to mention envy and dissatisfaction with our own lives. But why are we so hooked on our screens? The answer is probably that dopamine is involved. This neurochemical causes us to seek out ‘a hit’ of gossip, information or news. And, by the way, it triggers the same neural pathways as cocaine and nicotine: the struggle is real.

  For me, there is a direct correlation between the number of times I check my phone and the speed of my thoughts. Every bit of information has the potential to create a cascade of feelings, memories and stress. I’ve been known to be that girl who checks her emails before getting out of bed, and it only takes one urgent email to get the adrenaline pumping before I’ve even brushed my teeth.

  A couple of years ago I made a resolution to reduce my use of social media. I’m glad I did, because a 2015 study by the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark proved that social media is making us miserable.11 It found that those who abandoned Facebook for a week were happier, less worried and less stressed than those who continued to log in.

  Think of the media you consume as being like food for your brain and soul. If you feed your brain junk, you’re going to feel like crap, end of story. If you want to feel good, a digital detox might be a good idea to cleanse out all the rubbish. Social media isn’t all bad, of course, and it’s pretty much impossible to avoid it completely, but there are ways to limit it, shift your perspective on it and build yourself up so it doesn’t mess with your peace of mind or self-worth.

  Are you hooked on worrying?

  There’s nothing nice about feeling anxious, right? Worrying is one of the most unpleasant ways to spend your time. That’s absolutely true, but (here’s a biggie that could be keeping you stuck) many people believe, consciously or unconsciously, that their worry serves a purpose. How often have you thought things such as:

  ‘If I worry about work enough, it will motivate me to work harder.’

  ‘If I imagine {insert catastrophic disaster} happening, at least I’ll be mentally prepared for the worst.’

  ‘If I have a freak out about money, it will help me to come up with a solution to get me out of this mess.’

  ‘If I punish myself by worrying about that mistake I made, it will stop me from making it again.’

  If you believe that worrying serves a useful purpose, it’s much harder to stop doing it. I should know. I used to think it helped. I felt compelled to worry, convinced it was useful in some way that I couldn’t quite rationalize. Sometimes it felt like my way of trying to find a ‘perfect’ solution to a problem. Other times, worry was simply my default setting; if my mind started to wander or if I was without distractions, worry would be there, taking the reins and veering off into some horrible places. On some level I felt it wasn’t safe to relax in case something went wrong. I had to be on high alert.

  If you’re worrying as a way to try to solve your problems, then you need to know that it’s highly unlikely to give you any valuable insight. This might be hard to swallow if you’re a habitual worrier, but I assure you it’s true. When you’re chronically worried you’re almost always stuck in a state of confusion, panic and fear, caught in a jumble of thoughts and emotions that has you tied up in knots. This frenzied state is light years away from the calm clarity that leads to true insight. When we’re clear-headed, we’re better able to focus, solve problems and tune in to our inner resources and strengths. The truth is, you are more prepared to handle things when you’re relaxed and living in the moment.

  Maybe you believe that worrying motivates you to do better. Surely all that worry will make you try harder next time? In fact, the opposite is true. Studies have shown that giving ourselves a hard time is strongly linked with lower levels of motivation and increased procrastination.12 In fact, being kind and supportive to ourselves is what truly motivates us.13 Say you’ve been trying to exercise more. You spend your time worrying about how unfit you’re getting, how useless you are and how you simply must make time to exercise. The more you worry about it, the less appealing it seems. You feel
shitty about the whole thing and end up ordering a curry and zoning out in front of Netflix. Worry saps your motivation and your mental energy to do the things you want to do.

  But surely worry is helpful sometimes? I hear you ask. True. In the very short term, a little worry can be just the thing to light a fire under your bum and get you to take action. But those chronic, circular worries about uncontrollable future events? They aren’t doing you any good. (And if some part of you secretly believes that worrying about things will stop them from happening, I’m here to tell you to let that one go, once and for all!)

  You’re not alone with your anxiety

  One of the things that can keep us feeling stuck in anxiety is a sense of deep alienation from those around us. For people who have never experienced anxiety, it can be difficult to understand. Incredulous partners and friends may say things like, ‘Why can’t you just snap out of it?’ They won’t understand why you’re getting so worked up over something that, to them, is trivial, and they’ll not have a clue that you lie awake most nights as a tiny army of ‘what ifs’ march through your brain, becoming more irrational as the hours tick on. After all, it’s tough to understand unless you’ve been there, felt the gut-wrenching dread and been practically paralysed by endless rumination.

  But when people don’t understand what we’re going through it leaves us feeling lonely and can make us doubt ourselves. Perhaps they’re right and we should just snap out of it? Then we end up feeling guilty and ashamed for not being able to cope, or for making a fuss about things when other people have it so much worse. We can see how lucky we are to have enough to eat and a roof over our head and to live in a stable country with no wars or natural disasters, so we feel guilty for still finding so many things to worry about.