Why Anxiety Feels the Way it Does – What You Need to Know to Strengthen Against Anxiety

The Take-Aways

  • Anxiety can feel awful, but it comes from a strong, healthy brain that is doing exactly what brains are meant to do – protect us and keep us alive. 
  • There’s a really good reason for every physical symptoms that come with anxiety, and understanding this can be a powerful way to turn anxiety around.
  • Anxiety comes from a part of your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala’s job is to be on the constant lookout for danger, and to get us physically ready to deal with that any threats that come our way – and humiliation, embarrassment, being separated from someone important to you – can all count as threat. 
  • When your brain things that might be trouble, it surges you with a cocktail of neurochemicals designed to get you faster, stronger, more powerful, more alert, and more able to physically deal with the threats. This is called the fight of flight response. 
  • Sometimes, your brain might sense danger and get you ready for fight or flight, when there is no need to fight or flee. The problem with this is that there is nothing to burn the neurochemicals that are surging through you and they build up. This is why anxiety can feel so awful – the physical feelings feed into anxious thoughts, which feed back into anxious feelings.
  • Every physical symptom has a good reason for being there, but if you don’t understand where they come from they can drive anxiety about the anxiety – so let’s talk about that.
  • The first thing that happens when your brain surges you with these neurochemicals is your breathing changes from strong deep breaths, probably like your breathing now, to short shallow breaths. This happens because your brain has told your body to stop using up oxygen on strong deep breaths in case it needs that oxygen to fight or flee.
  • When that happens, the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your body change. This can cause you to feel a bit dizzy or confused. Again, this is all completely safe and just a sign that your brain is being a little overprotective and getting you ready to physically deal with a ‘threat’ that isn’t actually a threat.
  • During anxiety your heart beats faster is to send that chemical fuel around to your body – your arms so they can fight and your legs so they can flee. It’s all normal and completely safe, but again, it can feel awful.
  • Your body starts to cool itself down so it doesn’t overheat in case it has to fight or flee. It does this by sweating, which is why you anxiety can make you feel clammy even on a cold day.
  • The muscles in your arms and legs can feel tense or wobbly. This is because of the neurochemical surge which is getting your arms ready to fight and your legs ready to flee – just in case.
  • Anything that isn’t absolutely essential for your survival in the moment is shut down to conserve energy in case you need that energy for fight or flight. One of the processes that gets wound down is digestion. This can give you butterflies, and it can make you feel like you’re going to vomit.
  • In the midst of anxiety, you might feel as though you want to burst into tears or you might feel really angry. This is because the amygdala is also in charge of other emotions. When it’s switched to high volume, as it is during anxiety, other emotions might also be switched to high volume.
  • There is a really simple, really powerful way to turn this all around and it’s by breathing. Iff someone tells you to ‘just breathe’ while you’re feeling anxious, it might not go down so well. This is because an anxious brain is a busy brain and during anxiety, it might have trouble accessing strong, deep breathing because that survival fight or flight instinct is telling it to breathe short, shallow breaths. The way around this is to practice strong deep breathing when you’re calm so it becomes more automatic and easier for your brain to access.
  • First though, it helps to understand why strong deep breathing is so powerful during anxiety. Breathing initiates ‘the relaxation response’. This response was identified by a cardiologist at Harvard as being a powerful way to neutralise the surging of fight or flight neurochemicals, and bringing the brain and body back to a calmer state.
  • The relaxation response is automatic, which means you don’t have to believe it works – it just will – but you do need to switch it on.
  • To activate the relaxation response, breathe in for three, hold for one, out for three. Repeat this a few times.
  • The really important thing is to practise it when you’re feeling calm. It seems ridiculous to have to practice breathing because it’s what we do, and we do it every minute of every day of our lives, but this type of breathing especially during anxiety isn’t easy. It’s not an automatic response. Your automatic response is to go to short shallow breathing so you need to retrain your brain to access strong deep breathing when you’re anxious.
  • If you you’re going into a situation that might trigger your anxiety have something on your wrist on your hand to remind you to take strong deep breaths, and over time this will start to become an automatic response, making it easier for your brain to access during anxiety. 


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    Over the past the past 24 hours, I’ve been in Devonport, Tasmania to deliver two sessions to parents and carers - ‘Big Feelings, Connection, and Confidence’, then later an open Q and A where parents brought their real life questions - and we talked.

Thank you for welcoming me so warmly, and for trusting me with your questions, your stories, and your vulnerability. 

This was an openness where real change begins. Parenting is hard - beautiful and messy and hard. In the last 24 hours, I’ve been moved by the openness and honesty of parents I’ve shared space with. This is where generational patterns start to shift.

So many of the parents I met are already doing this deep, brave work. The questions asked were honest, raw, and profoundly human — the kind of questions that can feel heavy and isolating until you hear someone else ask them too.

Our children will grow in the most incredible ways if we allow them the space, and if we hold that space with love and leadership and a curious mind. And, if we open ourselves to them, and are willing to shift and stretch and grow, they will grow us too.

Thank you to @devonportevents for everything you’ve done to make these events happen.♥️
    Can’t wait for this! I’ll be in Devonport, Tasmania next week to present two talks for parents and carers. 

The first is on Monday evening 19 May for a talk about how to support big feelings, behaviour and regulation in young people. This is not just another anxiety talk. You’ll walk away feeling hopeful, empowered, and with strategies you can start using straight away. 

Then, on Tuesday morning 20 May, I’ll be giving another talk for parents and carers but this will be a Q&A. Bring your questions to me! Even if you don’t have questions, the ones I answer will be loaded with practical information that will support you in your parenting journey. 

So grateful to @devonportevents for organising the events. They are public talks, open to everyone. 

Tickets available at Humanitix - search Devonport events and scroll down until you find me! 

Would love to see you there.♥️
    Hello Adelaide! I’ll be in Adelaide on Friday 27 June to present a full-day workshop on anxiety. 

This is not just another anxiety workshop, and is for anyone who lives or works with young people - therapists, educators, parents, OTs - anyone. 

Tickets are still available. Search Hey Sigmund workshops for a full list of events, dates, and to buy tickets or see here https://www.heysigmund.com/public-events/
    First we decide, ‘Is this discomfort from something unsafe or is it from something growthful?’

Then ask, ‘Is this a time to lift them out of the brave space, or support them through it?’

To help, look at how they’ll feel when they (eventually) get through it. If they could do this bravely thing easily tomorrow, would they feel proud? Happy? Excited? Grateful they did it? 

‘Brave’ isn’t about outcome. It’s about handling the discomfort of the brave space and the anxiety that comes with that. They don’t have to handle it all at once. The move through the brave space can be a shuffle rather than a leap. 

The more we normalise the anxiety they feel, and the more we help them feel safer with it (see ‘Hey Warrior’ or ‘Ups and Downs’ for a hand with this), the more we strengthen their capacity to move through the brave space with confidence. This will take time, experience, and probably lots of anxiety along the way. It’s just how growth is. 

We don’t need to get rid of their anxiety. The key is to help them recognise that they can feel anxious and do brave. They won’t believe this until they experience it. Anxiety shrinks the feeling of brave, not the capacity for it. 

What’s important is supporting them through the brave space lovingly, gently (though sometimes it won’t feel so gentle) and ‘with’, little step by little step. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they’re forward.♥️
    Of course we’ll never ever stop loving them. But when we send them away (time out),
ignore them, get annoyed at them - it feels to them like we might.

It’s why more traditional responses to tricky behaviour don’t work the way we think they did. The goal of behaviour becomes more about avoiding any chance of disconnection. It drive lies and secrecy more than learning or their willingness to be open to us.

Of course, no parent is available and calm and connected all the time - and we don’t need to be. 

It’s about what we do most, how we handle their tricky behaviour and their big feelings, and how we repair when we (perhaps understandably) lose our cool. (We’re human and ‘cool’ can be an elusive little beast at times for all of us.)

This isn’t about having no boundaries. It isn’t about being permissive. It’s about holding boundaries lovingly and with warmth.

The fix:

- Embrace them, (‘you’re such a great kid’). Reject their behaviour (‘that behaviour isn’t okay’). 

- If there’s a need for consequences, let this be about them putting things right, rather than about the loss of your or affection.

- If they tell the truth, even if it’s about something that takes your breath away, reward the truth. Let them see you’re always safe to come to, no matter what.

We tell them we’ll love them through anything, and that they can come to us for anything, but we have to show them. And that behaviour that threatens to steal your cool, counts as ‘anything’.

- Be guided by your values. The big ones in our family are honesty, kindness, courage, respect. This means rewarding honesty, acknowledging the courage that takes, and being kind and respectful when they get things wrong. Mean is mean. It’s not constructive. It’s not discipline. It’s not helpful. If we would feel it as mean if it was done to us, it counts as mean when we do it to them.

Hold your boundary, add the warmth. And breathe.

Big behaviour and bad decisions don’t come from bad kids. They come from kids who don’t have the skills or resources in the moment to do otherwise.

Our job as their adults is to help them build those skills and resources but this takes time. And you. They can’t do this without you.❤️

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