Working with anxiety

We live in a fast-changing world of political, economic, and environmental uncertainty, so it’s no wonder we experience anxiety. Whether this is about recovering from the pandemic, the rising cost of living, or declining public services, there’s plenty to worry about. This is backed up by Psychologists, who report an 80% increase in anxiety disorders since the pandemic.

Although related, fear and anxiety are not exactly the same. Fear is a response to an immediate threat and has always been critical for survival. A snake suddenly appears on the path, and we directly experience fear. Anxiety tends to be indirect and is often about anticipating a future threat, which may, or may not occur.

One of the reasons why anxiety is so easily triggered is that our brains evolved to prioritise threat and survival needs over more pleasant experiences. This in-built bias means that we use more internal resources, including how we store events in memory, to process threats than more pleasant experiences. Like other emotions, anxiety includes physical sensations, feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. For instance, when we’re anxious we may have sweaty palms, muscle tension, “butterflies” in the stomach, experience worrying thoughts, feel nervous and panicky and avoid situations that make us feel anxious.

At the base of the brain, there’s an area called the amygdala that’s involved in memory, decision-making and emotional reaction. The amygdala learns to associate sights, sounds, smells and touch with a threat and triggers the systems for the flight, fight or freeze response; raising blood pressure and releasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisone. For good reasons, the amygdala reacts very quickly, way before we fully process and think about what’s happening. Unfortunately, the amygdala is about as intelligent as a smoke alarm. When there’s an actual fire, we’re pleased it worked, but when it’s too sensitive and goes off every time we burn the toast, it’s annoying and can disturb our sense of wellbeing. Interestingly, imagined as well as real threats can trigger the amygdala, which is like the smoke alarm going off in your kitchen every time you have a worrying thought. Interestingly, a study that measured physical changes in the brain of people who meditated daily found that their amygdala decreased in size.

Like other emotions, anxiety emerges, plays out, and dissolves after a while. It also operates on a continuum, from mild to elevated levels. We experience mild anxiety every day; whether the train will be cancelled, that there may be heavy traffic, or we will be late for the meeting, for example.

However real or imagined, there are ways that we can work with anxiety to live easier and more productive lives, free from the negative limitations that anxiety can impose. The first step is to notice that anxiety is present, by being open and aware of our feelings and physical sensations in the moment.

If you notice anxiety, try exploring what you’re experiencing by asking:

Would it be natural to feel anxious in this situation?
What is this feeling telling me?
Is this feeling useful – or is it a false alarm?
Where am I feeling this in my body?
What anxious thoughts am I entertaining?
Am I starting to worry, rather than problem-solve?

However valid the anxiety may feel, you can allow and embrace the feelings and thoughts that are already here in this moment; without judgement or self-criticism; seeing thoughts as just mental events and bringing kindness and self-compassion. If the feelings and thoughts are not serving you, let go of holding onto them, so they take their natural course and dissolve. And if all else fails, try asking yourself, “What problems do I have in this moment?” and see what difference that makes.

Suggested weekly practice

Become aware of and acknowledge anxiety as it arises and check whether this is useful or a false alarm; is there a real fire or has the smoke alarm gone off because of some burnt toast?
Use curiosity to explore the interplay between sensations, anxious feelings and worrying thoughts and see what insights emerge.
There are many occasions where it’s normal to feel a bit of anxiety, like speaking in public for instance. When you experience anxiety in situations like this, tell yourself that it’s normal to feel this way and that you can use the energy to your advantage.

Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the first settling practice; play the poem and then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to explore working with anxiety and finding stability and balance, free from the negative limitations that anxiety can bring.

Calm

When we’re in a train looking at a parallel train on the opposite track and ours pulls out, we can sometimes experience the illusion that the other train has started to move, when it’s actually the one that we’re on. We experience a similar illusion every day, as the sun moves across the sky; but it’s the earth that’s rotating on its axis every day at nearly one thousand miles an hour. So as humans we sometimes misperceive what’s going on in our environment.

Our busy world has increased momentum. Not only are there more things to do in our day, but time also seems to go faster than ever. Never before in human history have we had so much access to new and changing information from hundreds of channels across multiple devices. We have increased workloads and possibly lower job security, as organisations do more with fewer people; while the global world of politics, economics and the environment seem to become more chaotic and unstable by the day. No wonder we sometimes feel agitated, irritable and anxious.

From two hundred thousand to around twelve thousand years ago, humans lived as foraging hunter-gatherers, During this period there would have been occasional times of danger and worry, but nothing approaching what we experience today. Like the hunter-gatherer tribes that still exist today, our ancestors led simpler, uncomplicated lives, which were in many ways much richer, more satisfying and healthier than the way we live in modern, Western societies. They typically spent one to two days gathering food and the rest of the time relaxing, socialising, eating, drinking and entertaining themselves. Although we can now gather our food much more quickly with a visit to the supermarket, it’s almost the reverse, as we spend most of our week working, with a couple of days for leisure if we’re lucky. Hunter-gatherers are more aerobically fit and tend not to experience hypertension, obesity or diabetes and have much lower levels of cholesterol.

The level of activity and information that we have to manage today can sometimes seem as if we’re swimming in the middle of a storm, being tossed around by the wind and waves. Within storms like hurricanes, there’s a place in the centre that remains calm. This is because the force of the strong winds deflects them away from the centre, so they never actually reach it. This is similar to the storms we experience in our own lives. We can get caught up in all the movement as our attention and sense of who we are gets pulled by the momentum of events and activities.

So, if we could find a way of navigating to the centre of the storm, free from the powerful momentum of events, we might find a space of calm and stillness.

Some of the core practices of meditation and mindfulness are to quieten the restless mind and stabilise emotions.

The wind blows against the surface of a lake and creates waves. Eventually, the wind subsides, and the lake returns to clearly reflecting the surrounding trees, mountains, and sky, like a mirror. In the same way, restless, agitated and fragmented thoughts create mental noise and emotional turbulence, which limits our ability to think clearly or perform at our best. Rather than skilfully responding from a point of stability and balance, we end up layering noise on top of noise. Like raising your voice so you can be heard in a noisy restaurant.

To have a proper conversation, we need to move away from the noise, towards a quieter place.

To find the calm centre we first need to become aware that the mind is becoming restless and agitated or notice strong emotions arising in the body. We can then bring our attention and awareness to the body and senses to ground ourselves in the present moment; seeing thoughts as just mental content and allowing movement in the mind to settle, like the particles in a snow-globe; letting go of holding onto any strong emotions in the body; allowing them to naturally release and dissolve in their own time while relaxing and releasing any physical tension; then using the sense of hearing to reach out to near and distant sounds, as we embrace a wider space within our awareness; resting in the space, stillness, and silence that contains everything.

We’re only human, so there are times when we’ll get caught up in the storms of our lives and won’t be able to find the calm centre. But with consistent practice and perseverance, we’re more likely to weather the challenges of what it means to be human in the world today.

Suggested weekly practice

Begin the day with a sitting meditation practice, so you start from a point of calm that you can use as a resource and refuge throughout the day.
Remember to check in with yourself to feel what’s going on. If you feel agitated or restless, take a break, some deeper breaths, go outside and look at nature or the open sky for a few calm and peaceful minutes.
Try turning off the notifications from apps on your mobile phone to see if this increases your level of calm.

Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to explore and experience finding the calm centre within yourself

Joy

It’s said that we are born with joy and that this natural capacity gets covered over with life’s experience as we get older. In our busy, hectic lives we can become so caught up in the noise, activity, and stress of life that it’s easy to lose the ability to experience joy. Some people, who lose touch with joy, look for a quick fix in alcohol and drug addiction; trying to connect with this lost emotion but in the wrong places. Interestingly, some psychotherapists say that most of what they do is about helping their clients “dis-cover” joy within themselves.

Joy is something we experience internally that resonates with the profound feeling of energy and aliveness in our body and heart; our natural state of being, underneath all the pressures, emotional burdens and limiting beliefs. Situations, where it’s easier to experience joy, include walking in nature, looking at a sunset over the ocean, during a music concert, and seeing a new-born child.

Feelings of joy arise in the present moment as a felt sense within the body and are about being, rather than doing. In other words, joy is a somatic experience and not about mental content and activity. Joy feels expansive and limitless, as we expand away from our “constructed” and limited sense of who we are in our heads, to the more inter-connected reality of our heart. It’s worth noting that recent research suggests that the heart is surrounded by neural connections like the brain. The neural cells around the heart are not the same as those in the brain that allows us to process thoughts, but even so, the research does point the way to broader felt-sense experience that relates to cultural ideas about the heart and emotions.

Many things can block or cover joy; for instance, being judgemental of ourselves and others, feelings of isolation and disconnection, self-protection, dissociation and disengagement from unpleasant reality as we perceive it. Also, if we’re feeling restless, angry, low, worried or anxious there’s no space and freedom for joy to emerge. The majority of these things are the unconscious habits and behaviour patterns that may have been useful at one point in the past, but now limit and no longer serve us. We feel joy when we connect with openness, compassion, and trust in a sense of deeper and benevolent wellbeing that lies beyond the turbulence on the surface.

Some of the ways we can intentionally cultivate, or uncover, joy include:

Appreciating, embracing and being present to joy when it appears in our lives
Improving how we regulate our emotions and moods, including being more aware of them as they arise, and learning how to work with them more skilfully
Calming our minds and emotions to create the conditions for joy to naturally arise
Bringing greater appreciation and gratitude into our lives
Practising generosity, kindness and seeing the good in others
Observing and investigating the habit patterns that block our experience of joy
Making sure we have fun and bring lightness and laughter into our day

Joy is the oxygen that allows us to flourish and engage more meaningfully with our experience. It’s the emotion that we were born with that’s become covered over as we’ve done our best to cope with the challenges and trauma of life. Joy does not need to be a distant memory. By creating the right conditions, we can allow joy to emerge as a vital, life-affirming emotion in our lives.

Suggested weekly practice

Creating the conditions where we are more likely to experience joy, settling the mind, calming emotions, relaxing tension in the body, and connecting with the present moment.
Planning events where we may feel joy, for instance, attending a life-affirming concert with a friend, walking in the woods, or looking at a beautiful sunset.
Tuning in to the felt sense of energy and aliveness in the body and heart that resonates with joy.

Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to explore and experience the joy that lies deep within us.

Breath

It’s commonly said that fish are oblivious to the water they live in. Our ancestors may have experienced a similar lack of awareness about the earth’s atmosphere, as it was not until the 1770’s that some of its components, including oxygen, were discovered.

Breath is one of those comforting certainties of life; if you’re alive your body will be breathing. We can survive roughly three weeks without food, three days without water, but only three minutes without oxygen. Given how critical breathing is, it’s a great example of one of those things we take for granted every day.

The average human takes about sixteen breaths a minute and over 20,000 breaths a day, most of which are managed automatically by the brain stem. This is the early “reptilian” part of our brain that results from millions of years of evolution, which is just as well if you consider what you’d have to do without it.

Our breath changes with physical demands, like walking up a long staircase. It also changes with how we feel, so it’s no surprise that there’s a strong link between breath and emotion. When we’re stressed, anxious, angry, or sad our breathing can be affected.

Fast and shallower breathing can be triggered by stress that kicks us into fight-or-flight mode, which lowers our immunity, increases blood pressure, the risk of heart disease, mental illness, and lower life expectancy; clearly, something to avoid if we can.

The good news is that simply practising intentional and aware breathing can help switch from the fight-or-flight to the relaxation response of the parasympathetic nervous system, and reverses the physiological effects of stress. Intentional breathing is when we take control of our breath to increase energy, or calm and relax the body, mind, and emotions.

Interestingly, breathing is one of those physical systems that we can control, for instance, when we speak. We can also hold our breath, which we can typically do for around one minute before the urge to breathe takes over.

The more common way of practising mindfully with the breath is to allow the body and brain stem to do its work; breathing naturally without interfering. If it helps, imagine peacefully watching a pet breathing.

As well as an indicator of what’s going on for us physically and emotionally, we can also use the breath as an anchor into the present moment. Focussing on the breath decouples our attention from our thoughts into a grounded connection with our body, which is only ever in the present moment. It takes us out of mulling over past memories and imagined futures, to focus our attention on the qualities of this unique moment.

So, if you find yourself feeling agitated, stressed, or anxious, try gently bringing your awareness to your breath for a few moments; noticing your body breathing for you if you can while letting all the movement of mind and emotions gently settle and come to rest.

Breath is fundamental to life; we can’t live without it. Learning to be more aware of the breath and using it as a tool to release any agitation or stress brings us into the present moment and makes a real difference to our health, well-being, and performance.

Suggested weekly practice

Using your breath as a stabilising anchor into the present moment, away from automatic thoughts, settling mental agitation, and calming emotional turbulence.
Noticing and appreciating how the breath brings moment-to-moment energy into the body.
If you notice that you are drifting during meditation, take a series of deeper, intentional breaths to raise your alertness.

Play the settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second one to explore both intentional and natural breathing.

Stress

In today’s world, it’s hard to avoid stress in one form or another. We may have some form of stress going on in our personal lives with maybe health, relationship, or money issues, or we could be under pressure at work. We emerged from the shock of the global pandemic, but now face rising inflation, political instability, and geopolitical conflicts, with the ongoing catastrophic climate crisis in the background. With challenges like this, it’s no wonder we sometimes feel a bit stressed out.

Part of the challenge is that our bodies are still wired to react to threats in the same way as when we were hunter-gatherers over 60,000 years ago. This is the fight-or-flight reaction, which gets the body ready to deal with threatening situations. While this made sense facing a dangerous snake, we now experience many smaller, often intangible, challenges over the day as this same mechanism makes us experience stress. And stress in today’s world is increasing. In the post-pandemic world anxiety and depression have increased by 25%, often compounded by the stress of uncertainty, loss, and isolation.

Of course, there’s positive stress that motivates us to get things done and negative stress, which damages our health and reduces our performance. When we become stressed, the sympathetic nervous system stimulates the adrenal glands to release adrenaline and the “stress hormone”, cortisol. Adrenaline increases our heart rate and blood pressure, while cortisol shuts down non-essential systems in the body, alters the immune system, and affects our mood and emotions. Once the pressure or threat subsides, it can take between 20 to 60 minutes for the stress hormones to return the body to its normal level. If the stress is constant, the physical symptoms build up and remain in the body for much longer.

Stress affects the brain, body, and emotions. Physical symptoms can include low energy, insomnia, headaches, aches, pain, and tension, as well as a lowered immune system. Higher levels of cortisol interfere with memory and learning, which can make it difficult to concentrate and focus. Emotionally we may feel overwhelmed, agitated, anxious, depressed, angry, and irritable and experience lower self-esteem.

Interestingly, the stress response can be triggered by both real and imagined threats. We interpret the world through our thoughts and feelings, which are not always reliable guides to reality. Our mind is so powerful that simply believing anxious thoughts is enough to trigger the symptoms of stress.

Another cause of stress is our tendency to react automatically, often out of unconscious habit. For instance, we skim-read an email that triggers fear and anger and then reinforces these feelings with emotionally charged thoughts about who’s to blame.

There are several ways to work with stress. These include identifying what causes the stress in our lives and proactively working on reducing their impact. Some ways to reduce stress could include changing the way we prioritize and manage our workload, being more assertive about not taking on more work, taking exercise to work off tensions, and socializing.

Practicing mindfulness also has a useful role to play. Awareness of our body, thoughts, and emotions allows us to notice the signs of stress earlier, as well as helping us observe how we interpret our experience. Once we have noticed the symptoms of stress, we can use mindfulness techniques to help release physical tension, settle mental agitation, allow negative emotions to dissolve, and bring kindness and compassion to ourselves. By releasing tension and stress we’ll have the resources that allow a bit of space and flexibility to respond appropriately, rather than reacting automatically. These techniques work when they are practised and experienced during challenging situations, which is not always easy. Over time they can make a real difference in our ability to manage stress and can bring greater stability, balance, and clarity into our lives.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction has a useful saying, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf”. You can stand in the sea, face the shore, and brace yourself as the waves crash into you, or you can face the waves and gracefully float up and down with them as they emerge, rise, and fall back into the ocean.
Suggested weekly practice

Notice the early symptoms of stress and start working to reduce stress as soon as you can.
Make sure you include some pleasant activity, like socialising with friends, which allows you to really relax and let go during the week.
Watch out for pushing back and resisting what arises in your experience and instead allow and accept what happens with openness and kindness.

Guidance

Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes or lower your gaze while the meditations play.

Play the first settling practice, then read the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
Then play the second practice to gently explore how your body, emotions, and mind react to stress and use mindfulness techniques to reduce and release the symptoms of stress.