A Lifestyle Lesson for Anxiety

As someone who was a mental health practitioner for 12 years, I can tell you that mental health diagnoses never really made any sense to me. And the most confusing diagnosis, in my professional opinion, is anxiety.

We use that word quite flippantly and commonly.

I’m anxious.

I have anxiety.

I’m feeling anxious.

Yet, it doesn’t really tell us anything at all about what we’re actually experiencing.

An effective, helpful diagnostic framework is one that reveals the cause and the solution all at once.

For example, what causes generalized anxiety disorder? That it is generalized means it’s very non-specific and literally could be anything. And since we don’t know the cause, we cannot seek the solution.

Instead, a more helpful diagnosis might be something like “overactive fetch circuitry,” which would mean that my symptoms are the result of me worrying too much about what to do or get (i.e., fetch) next. With that description lies the solution: worry less.

That’s what Anne’s Anatomy™ has done for me, and someday soon, hopefully I’ll write it up into an easy-to-use manual.

For now though, anxiety is best resolved using the Feel, Share, Act process I shared in my TEDx Talk.

Once you have felt the sensation more specifically in your body and connected it to a feeling word in your mind, and acted upon it within your relationships, the amorphous experience of “anxiety” goes away. Instead, it’s replaced with a very specific, manageable experience that also reveals a plan of action.

Here are three tips for how to better understand, move through, and solve bouts of anxiety.

SEE: Notice which sensations are connected to what you would normally call “anxiety.”

Perhaps a better descriptor for the experience of “anxiety” is “nervousness.” When someone says they’re feeling anxious, usually it means their nervous system is activated, buzzing, and all jacked up with nothing to do.

When we drop down into our body and describe sensations, it usually reveals more information about what’s going on for us. And that information can be connected to a feeling word in our mind, which is even more revealing of how we might solve the problem in the end.

Here are four common clusters of sensations connected to a color for reference:

RED Cluster: hot, elevated heart rate, clenched jaw, tight shoulders, irritation in the bowels and/or sinuses

ORANGE Cluster: winced facial expressions, stuck feelings in muscles not wanting to move forward, agitated energy in chest, tightness in diaphragm

YELLOW Cluster: elevated breath rate or holding the breath, tension or turnover in the stomach, fluttering in the chest, darting eyes

GREEN Cluster: tightness and heaviness in chest, shallow breathing, sunken shoulders, lack of energy or enthusiasm

Once you connect your sensations with a feeling word, you’re on your way to resolving the energy that’s stuck.

STOP: Pause long enough to connect the sensations in your body to the stories in your mind.

This means connecting your sensation with a feeling word so you can more accurately describe your experience.

Here are the four clusters of sensations connected with four feeling phrases:

RED – I am angry: hot, elevated heart rate, clenched jaw, tight shoulders, irritation in the bowels and/or sinuses

ORANGE – I am responsible: winced facial expressions, stuck feelings in muscles not wanting to move forward, agitated energy in chest, tightness in diaphragm

YELLOW – I am apprehensive: elevated breath rate or holding the breath, tension or turnover in the stomach, fluttering in the chest, darting eyes

GREEN – I am sad: tightness and heaviness in chest, shallow breathing, sunken shoulders, lack of energy or enthusiasm

To connect the sensations accurately to the stories, try simply stating the stories out loud until one resonates. Usually there will be a shift in your body that will tell you you’re onto the right one.

START: Move forward in feeling, sharing, and acting on what you’ve learned.

Now that you have the sensation connected with the story, add on an action.

RED – I am angry – I will self-advocate: hot, elevated heart rate, clenched jaw, tight shoulders, irritation in the bowels and/or sinuses

ORANGE – I am responsible – I will remedy the situation: winced facial expressions, stuck feelings in muscles not wanting to move forward, agitated energy in chest, tightness in diaphragm

YELLOW – I am apprehensive – I will move away: elevated breath rate or holding the breath, tension or turnover in the stomach, fluttering in the chest, darting eyes

GREEN – I am sad – I will mourn: tightness and heaviness in chest, shallow breathing, sunken shoulders, lack of energy or enthusiasm

As you add these actions to the Feel, Share, Act sequence, you’ll notice the energy from the “anxiety” dissipates and resolves completely. By repeating this process over and over, the nervous sensation of anxiety will become less and less, eventually fading away entirely.

This is only possible as you learn to trust the sensations in your body and avoid minimizing your experience by simply saying “I’m anxious.”

MAGIC MANTRA: My body knows best.