When you feel like your mind is “nervous,” it often means that certain parts of your brain are overactive or misinterpreting signals. It’s helpful to understand the roles of these key areas:
- The Amygdala: This is like your brain’s alarm system. It’s designed to respond to threats and can trigger a fight, flight, or freeze response. If your amygdala is overactive, it might be misinterpreting normal situations as dangerous. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, panic, and physical symptoms like a racing heart or shallow breathing.
- The Cortex: This is the part of your brain responsible for thinking, planning, and reasoning. When you’re anxious, your cortex might get caught in a loop of negative thoughts, worries, and ‘what if’ scenarios. This can lead to a feeling of being stuck in your head.
- The Limbic System: This system is responsible for processing smell, storing emotional memories, and regulating sleep, appetite, moods, sexuality, and bonding. It plays a role in how you experience and react to emotions.
- Neurotransmitters and Hormones: Anxiety also involves chemical changes in your brain, such as the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which contribute to the physical feelings of anxiety.
These brain areas work together to create your experience of anxiety. The good news is that your brain is neuroplastic, meaning it can change and adapt. You can learn to manage your anxiety by influencing these neural pathways.
How You Can Help Yourself
Here are some strategies and tools you can use:
- Mindfulness and Acceptance
- What it is: Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment without judgment. It helps you observe your thoughts and feelings as they arise, without getting caught up in them. Acceptance involves acknowledging your anxiety as a normal experience without fighting or resisting it.
- How it helps: Mindfulness can help to change the way your cortex responds to anxiety. By observing your anxiety rather than struggling with it, you can reduce its power. Acceptance can help reduce the fear of fear, making it easier to cope with anxiety when it arises.
- Technique: When you feel anxious, find a quiet place and focus on your breath or bodily sensations. Notice any thoughts and images without analyzing or judging them. Simply observe what is happening in your body and mind.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Can reduce reactivity to thoughts and reduce physical symptoms by bringing focus to your body.
- Self-Compassion
- What it is: Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer to a friend. It’s about acknowledging your difficulties without being self-critical.
- How it helps: Being kind to yourself can reduce the stress and negative self-talk that feed anxiety. It also helps in moving toward acceptance of your feelings and yourself.
- Technique: When you notice self-critical thoughts, try to reframe them with kinder, more supportive language. Remind yourself that everyone struggles sometimes and that you are doing your best.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Reduces negative self-talk and feelings of inadequacy, fostering a sense of worth and self-acceptance.
- Havening Techniques
- What it is: Havening involves gentle touch and distraction to help reduce the emotional charge of upsetting memories and experiences. It uses touch and other sensory input to create a sense of safety.
- How it helps: This technique can help to calm an overactive amygdala, reducing the intensity of anxiety. It is also helpful for building emotional resilience by processing past events.
- Technique: Use gentle touch on your hands or face while thinking about something positive or neutral. This helps to create a sense of calm.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Reduces intensity of overwhelming emotional reactions. Helps you to process past events to reduce triggers.
- Solution-Focused Approaches
- What it is: Instead of dwelling on the causes of your anxiety, focus on identifying your desired outcomes and how you can achieve them.
- How it helps: This technique focuses your attention on building a positive future, rather than being stuck in anxiety. It can also provide a sense of control.
- Technique: Ask yourself questions like, “How will I celebrate my victory over anxiety?” or, “What will be most helpful for me to move forward?”.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Helps you focus on desired outcomes rather than being caught up in feelings of helplessness.
- Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- What it is: NLP focuses on understanding how your thoughts, language, and behaviour affect your experience of anxiety.
- How it helps: NLP can help you identify specific triggers and develop new ways of responding to them. It helps you take control of your thoughts and feelings.
- Technique: Identify your anxiety triggers, reframe them, and use techniques such as setting relaxation anchors or imagining yourself as calm and confident.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Helps to identify and reframe anxiety triggers and create new emotional responses.
- Physical Activity
- What it is: Regular exercise is a powerful tool for managing anxiety.
- How it helps: Exercise can help reduce the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as tension and restlessness. It also helps to regulate mood and improve sleep.
- Technique: Engage in regular aerobic exercise or other physical activities that you enjoy.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Reduces overall feelings of tension and restlessness.
- Healthy Lifestyle
- What it is: A healthy diet, good sleep, and limiting alcohol and caffeine are important for a healthy brain.
- How it helps: These factors can reduce the likelihood of triggering your anxiety.
- Technique: Focus on eating nutritious food, getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night, and limiting alcohol and stimulants.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Helps to regulate mood, energy levels and overall mental and physical wellbeing.
- “As If” Technique
- What it is: This NLP technique involves acting “as if” you are already calm and confident.
- How it helps: By behaving as if you are confident, even when you feel anxious, you can influence how your brain interprets situations and reduces the intensity of feelings of stress.
- Technique: Imagine that you’re getting aroused (in the sense of excitement), and observe how your body responds, because the brain has difficulty telling the difference between arousal and stress.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Reduces physical symptoms of anxiety, by interpreting stress as excitement.
- Timeline Therapy
- What it is: This technique involves imagining a timeline of your life and accessing past experiences from a detached perspective.
- How it helps: It can help you change the way you feel about past experiences that are triggering anxiety.
- Technique: Imagine a wall representing your life and go to a timeline position where the anxiety is in the past and observe the experience from there.
- Specific Symptom Connection: Reduces fear of the future by moving your perspective to the past where anxiety has resolved.
Important Considerations
- Start small: Don’t try to implement all of these strategies at once. Start with one or two that resonate with you and gradually add more as you feel comfortable.
- Be patient: Change takes time and practice, so be patient with yourself and celebrate your progress.
- Professional help: If you find it difficult to manage your anxiety on your own, consider seeking support from a therapist, anxiety coach or other professional. They can offer additional guidance and support.
It’s important to remember that you’re not alone in your experience. Many people struggle with a “nervous mind,” and with the right tools and support, you can learn to manage your anxiety and live a more peaceful life.