Anxiety is the normal reaction to problems and threats, perceived or real. Nature gave us anxiety as part of our biological make up, it alerts us to problems that must be dealt with.
It also releases certain secretions into our blood stream to better equip us for the task. These include glucose to give us energy for fight or flight. Never go for a blood glucose test for diabetes if you're feeling over anxious!
So anxiety provides an essential service. The problem arises when the things that cause us anxiety become overwhelming: these include stress, worry, overwork, grief, loss and disappointment. The usual suspects.
Eventually we lose our nerve and panic - everyone has their breaking point - glands producing stress hormones go into overdrive flooding our nervous system which becomes over sensitised.
Sensitised nerves cause the symptoms of anxiety we know only too well: panic attacks, health anxiety, feelings of imminent death and social anxiety. Then fear enters the equation causing even more nervous sensitisation. And depression too: we become depressed about our anxiety.
Our first instinct is to fight back. This is where we start to go wrong. Because fighting causes more stress and tension: the last thing over sensitive nerves need.
Instead we need to accept all the bad feelings and symptoms for the moment and do nothing. We recover our quiet mind by doing nothing. That's the cure: doing nothing. Once we ACCEPT the symptoms as uncomfortable but temporary disturbances and refuse to fight or fear them we stop adding fuel to the fire. Just carry on with your day, completely accepting the symptoms of anxiety disorder for the time being.
By so doing we stop overdosing on the hormones of stress and fear and give our shattered nerves time to recover.
The acceptance method can be part of your recovery plan that may also include your doctor's care, medication and talking therapy from specialists. There are many excellent YouTubes explaining how to put acceptance into practice.
