A Cure for Anxiety

I was never a chilled person but like many people, Covid really pushed me over the edge when it comes to anxiety. During the pandemic, it was hard to leave the house and socialise.  Five years on I’ve mostly gone back to my previous life, but I still don’t feel like I’ve gone back to my old self.

In the past, I’ve always stressed out about exams, tough deadlines or relationships. But recently it’s been more like a state of constant fear. Always expecting something dreadful to happen, jumping at the slightest issue. It has made it hard to enjoy life, and work in particular.

So I started proactively looking for proven ways to cope.

Thankfully (or not, depending how you look at it) I’m not the only one. There seems to be a worldwide epidemic of anxiety, so that there are now more resources available.

Most of the advice I had previously come across, in books or counselling, centred on CBT. I’m not dissing it if it works for you, but for me it never worked for more than a few days and it was never a match for panic attacks. It felt like I was fighting my own brain, and I never won.

So here I am sharing three resources I’ve recently come across, which I found promising as they offer a different way to look at the problem:

Dr Kennedy is a medical doctor, neuroscientist and anxiety sufferer, so his point of view is interesting, as someone who knows both theory and practice. I don’t remember his explanations in detail, but the basis of it is that anxiety starts first from a state of alert in your body, before it triggers overthinking in your brain. So if you calm your body as soon as you feel a wave of anxiety coming on, you can stop it in its tracks before it gets your brain. If you can’t, once the brain is triggered, it’s pretty much game over (which is true, in my experience). He goes through various techniques including visualising your anxiety in your body, or simply placing your hand on the body part that feels anxious and breathing into it. This one works like magic for me, but see what works for you.

  • A book called The Practice of Not Thinking by Japanese Zen monk, Ryunosuke Koike.

While not exactly a fun read (I don’t think many zen monks are comedians) it gives clear techniques for grounding yourself in your senses while performing everyday activities, such as talking, writing or cooking. Focusing on your senses means you can’t overthink. The book teaches the rules of Japanese Buddhism to create peace within yourself, and harmony with people around you. It’s pro-level mindfulness, and some of the advice might feel foreign to the Western reader (I wasn’t sure about the injunction to avoid laughing or talking for example). But it gives you easy tools to stay present and avoid being in your head too much, which is the source of anxiety. I might come back to it again and learn more tips as I go.

  • Martha Beck’s new book Beyond Anxiety.

I’m biased because Martha Beck is one of my favourite authors and I will buy anything she writes. It’s lucky her last book is on the exact topic I am interested in. A life-long anxiety sufferer with ADHD (which can’t have helped), she explores the neuroscience of anxiety. How it naturally rises from the left part of your brain (the logical half) and how it can be reduced by activating the right part of your brain (the creative part). While both parts work well together, there is a clear toggle effect – the more creative you are, the less anxious you can be. Because modern society is mostly left-brained, you will need to make adjustments in your everyday life to foster creativity. You might start behaving a little odd, but you should feel better.

What I liked about these resources is that, alongside clear guidance for feeling better, they also acknowledge we do live in a world of overstimulation, to which anxiety is a natural response. So it’s not really our fault. Also the three authors seem to have come out the other side of anxiety themselves, so there’s hope for all of us.

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