What is Anxiety?

So you are wondering what all of this talk about Anxiety actually is? Let’s delve a little deeper…

This blog is is based on knowledge and experience as Psychology teacher, examiner and mental health trainer in school as well as qualified Yoga teacher this is my summary of anxiety and tips to help as a parent and teenager.

First of all – get to know your brain!

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is where your body goes into a longer stage of fight or flight and preparing for something bad to happen. This is a natural instinct and a reaction that we naturally will do as we progress through life. Some people are more prone to going into this state than others, whilst some people learn how to recognise it and methods to help prevent it.

It is linked to our release of adrenalin when we are in a position of stress or worry. Again this is a natural instinct. Because our body is preparing for fight or flight we find our heart beats faster, we may feel butterflies in our tummy, sweaty palms and sometimes we are unsure as to where this has come from.

If we have longer term stress we may also release cortisol which is a stronger hormone and can cause us more longer term effects on heart and muscles, this can also impact on our immune system and therefore mean we are ill more often.

How is this linked to our brain?

We also have certain neurotransmitters in our brain; serotonin and dopamine are linked to mood, sleep and anxiety levels so again it is useful to try and keep these levels at a good balance.

If we drop our levels of serotonin we become more anxious, our sleep may be affected and we worry more about minor things. So we need to aim to increase our serotonin to improve the mood, read on for tips on how to do this.

Dopamine is a feel good neurotransmitter, so we release it when we feel good, for example if we go on a rollercoaster or feel a buzz after shopping!

Finally there is another area of our brain than can affect how we react to certain things, this is linked to repetitive behaviour known as brain plasticity. So whenever we are in a stressful situation we learn how to react, if we react with panic and fight or flight our brain thinks this is the norm and will repeat this next time we are in a stressful situation. Therefore every-time we are in a position of worry, or even daily hassles such as bad traffic, dropping something on the floor, how we react to these things becomes entrenched in our brain through the connections we make in the repetitive behaviour.

How can we help ourselves improve our mood or brain health?

However the good news is this can be reversed! Think about when you learnt to swim, a dance routine, to make a cake – none of these things are instinctive. They are learnt over time and repetition. So think of those thought patterns as skills and learn to retrain them over time.

So there are number of ways you can do this…

1. Practice positive thoughts – I know it sounds strange to say affirmations to yourself. But each time you do something and you may think “that was rubbish” or “ my hair looks awful today” replace it with a positive thought such as “that was tough, but I  did it”. Or “I think I need to go to the hairdressers, what a treat!”.
2. Be honest with yourself. Life isn’t perfect, rubbish and terrible things happen, acknowledge that and be sad, but then try and refocus yourself on the good things and positive things around you.
3. Walk. Walk in nature if possible. Listening to bird song for 6 minutes can release serotonin and thus improve your mood.
4. Breathing techniques. Again this is easier said than done allowing yourself to focus on your breath and slowing it down can really improve your mood, but also help you when you are in a situation of fight or flight anxiety. Try box breathing where you imagine a breath coming in one side of a square – travelling along the top and then down the other side of the box. This focus will allow you to slow your breath and reset yourself.
5. Gentle exercise such as yoga, swimming, walking all help you focus on the exercise you are doing, so your anxiety will release and you will be able to walk away feeling like you have achieved something. This will also help retrain the brain into positive habits that you can help with mood.

You can also visit your doctor or private practice and ask for CBT – which is a talking therapy which will help guide you into the more positive thinking habits.

To find out more, here are some excellent book recommendations:

I hope you enjoy reading about parenting breathing and meditation: Check out one of the amazing local booksellers around Ipswich.

• The book you wish your parents read – Phillipa Perry
• Why has no-one told me this before? Dr Julie Smith
• Atomic habits – students have recommended this to me before – so maybe worth a look for your teenager!
• 12 rules for life – Jordan B Peterson – Again students have recommended this to me before – young people enjoy reading it!

If you would like to know more about ways to improve your mental and physical health, definitely give Yoga a try, there are some amazing Yoga places around Ipswich. I shall provide my run down of top recommendation in my next post!

In the meantime you can follow me in Instagram at yoga_withlouisa or facebook – Yogawithlouisa and join my mailing list on www.yogawithlouisa.com