3 Key Ways Anxiety Affects Your Life and Relationships.
Anxiety affects many areas of our lives and can be detrimental to our wellbeing. It is often diagnosed in early adulthood or can occur during stressful times in our lives. Anxiety can be linked to relationships as a feeling of insecurity, stress or overthinking about the relationship. Often when anxiety arises we are not sure what to do about it, as the feeling of anxiety is generally unpleasant we then set about trying to get rid of the feeling by distracting ourselves, using food, alcohol or other drugs to self soothe or opening a lot of time ruminating and worrying about what might happen. Anxiety sometimes arises as a fear of the future, obsessive thinking or feeling out of control. There are many techniques that we can use to help soothe the anxious feelings but often it is more helpful to understand the root causes of anxiety and what it is trying to tell us.
There are some situations in life in which a degree of anxiety is a normal healthy response. If for example we have to sit an exam we may feel anxious beforehand which may be helpful in temporarily increasing our performance and will subside when the exam is over. In this post we’re taking about recurring anxiety that doesn't relate to a stressful situation you are currently facing. This type of anxiety may have no apparent cause or may be a pattern that reoccurs in relationships.
The Roots of Anxiety
The original causes of anxiety, particularly anxiety that arises in relationships, can often be found in childhood experiences. Maybe we had an unsafe home life where there was abuse or conflict present and this has set us up to thinking, feel and believe that the world is a dangerous or unhelpful place. Perhaps we were bullied at school or had other difficulties in our teenage years or our parents or caregivers were anxious and we picked up on this. There are many reasons why children develop long lasting anxiety as a result of stressful life events. An inability for a caregiver to feel and display empathy may mean that emotionally the child doesn’t feel connected to the caregiver. This disconnection may set the person up for a sense of emotional disconnection from others later on in life. Anxious patterns such as this can take hold and cause problems in relationships as well as our overall sense of connection and wellbeing.
If we want to effectively heal from chronic or severe anxiety we must be willing to open a dialogue with the anxious part of ourselves so that we can learn to understand that part of ourselves rather than try to get rid of it. Often we have been trying to get rid of the anxiety for a long time but it hasn’t worked. This is an invitation to turn towards the anxiety rather than away from it, to get to know the anxious part of you so that you’re better able to find out what that part of you needs.
Anxiety in the mind
Anxious patterns in the mind take the form of worry, overthinking and racing thoughts. The mind can be a jumble of swirling thoughts or quite blank so that it’s difficult to think straight. We can be flooded with “what if” thoughts so that the future becomes scary and best avoided. If we allow our minds to run anxious patterns, we can get caught in loops of worry and stressful overthinking which then creates a stronger feeling of anxiety in our bodies. It’s like having someone stood next to you who is telling you all day how bad things are going to be and how scary the future is. We may find ourselves worrying about things we can’t control which can lead to feeling overwhelmed, out of control or powerless. So having an awareness of how our mind is contributing to the feelings of anxiety is important, we must become conscious of how we’re thinking about things if we really want to change them.
Another aspect of anxiety in our minds is what is sometimes canned the inner critic. This is the part of us that criticises us telling us that we’re not good enough, we’ll never make it or that we won’t be able to cope. This part of us can be particularly vicious and negative causing a drop in our mood, agitation and a decrease in feelings of wellbeing. Again, it’s important to notice when that part of us has become activated so that we can start to make changes to this other wise we are not aware that this critical inner voice exists, all we know if that we feel anxious, stressed or down.
Anxiety in the body
When we think of anxiety we generally think of the feelings of anxiety that arise in our bodies as this is what feels unpleasant. Typically we’ll experience anxiety as feelings of being on edge, tense, restless or numb. We may experience physiological symptoms such as a racing heart, shakiness, fast breathing, headaches, tension etc. This is the physiological fight or flight response activated by the anxious thoughts we are thinking and what we telling ourselves about situations in our lives. Medication can help with this but long lasting relief from these feelings is needed if we are to live with more freedom and with a calmer state of body and mind.
Anxious behaviours
Another aspect of anxiety is how this affects our behaviour. Typically if we feel anxious about a certain situation we will avoid it or try to force ourselves to do it anyway. This can sometimes be helpful but more often than not causes limitation in our lives especially if we’re avoiding a lot of different things. Understanding why we do this can be helpful rather than avoiding or forcing, it can be difficult to change behaviour until we can manage the underlying feelings which stop us from taking action.
What can you do?
If you’ve been feeling anxious for a long time or it’s severely affecting your life it may be time to reach out for help. You may have been trying to deal with it on your own and the thought of getting help can be daunting, part of the reason why we struggle with anxiety so much may be because we find it difficult to ask for help. The main difficulty with anxiety is we can’t see it clearly or understand why it’s there. We can try to get rid of the feelings, carry on regardless or find temporary relief but it can be exhausting to live like this as well as unpleasant.
Therapy can help you understand and discover the root causes for how you feel and how to work with the part of you that’s anxious so you don’t have to keep living the same patterns over and over. If this is something you would find helpful reach out to Jennifer at jkennedytherapy@icloud.com. Therapy could help you move forward and feel better.
