Calming the Anxious Mind
We are living in turbulent times. If you are paying attention at all, it’s hard not to feel anxious about the state of the world we live in and the fate of humanity. While violence, war, and natural disasters have occurred throughout human history, we seem to be experiencing them today with a new level of intensity – from the effects of climate change to the rise in terrorist activity – while our leaders and politicians seem more concerned with their own approval ratings than providing actual leadership.
We also live in a “500-channel universe,” a world of seemingly infinite possibilities for distraction. Distraction is a common coping strategy against anxious thoughts or worries, but when we are bombarded by TV and radio programming that aims to offend and shock, advertising that urges us to spend money we don’t have in a never-ending quest for happiness, and the constant stream of bad news, our nervous system gets stressed, and may become overloaded.
The pace of daily life has sped up, to a speed that may actually exceed the brain’s ability to process and respond to our experience in an effective way. When I was growing up, we were promised that technology would make our lives easier, and give us more leisure time (remember “The Jetsons”?) Instead, we have less free time, with our cell phones, laptops, and tablets keeping us connected to the office and to everyone we know 24/7, even while we’re supposed to be sleeping or on vacation. This lack of down time adds to our stress and anxiety.
Anxiety and worry are normal human emotions, emanating from the part of our brain that houses our survival instincts. (Read what Rick Hanson, PhD says about the brain’s “negativity bias.”) Anxiety can be passed down in families, both as a genetic predisposition and as learned behavior. Everyone experiences anxiety at times, though some people are more sensitive to it, while others are anxious all the time. Anxiety is one of the most common reasons that people take medication (or use alcohol, drugs, or food to “numb out”). So what are some healthy ways to relieve anxiety, and calm the anxious mind?
One way is to “unplug”: see if you can turn off your devices when you’re eating and sleeping, and leave them at home while you enjoy a walk in nature. Stop watching the news on TV before bedtime, and read a book instead. Can you go for a whole day without checking email or texting? Finding ways to reduce the amount of stimulation to your brain may lower your anxiety level.
Another way is to challenge your assumptions and thoughts about whatever is making you anxious. If you’re prone to playing the “worst case scenario” game in your head, you may be scaring yourself, and making things worse than they actually are. The gold standard of anxiety treatment is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which teaches you to change how you feel by changing your thoughts and behaviors. Check out this new CBT workbook: The Road to Calm
Because we experience anxiety in the physical body, as well as in our minds, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a newer variation of CBT, incorporates meditation and yoga practices. As a CBT practitioner for over 25 years, and an MBCT practitioner for the last seven, I’ve found that mindfulness and meditation practice improve the efficacy of CBT, and are also stand-alone practices that can be very helpful to manage anxiety and relieve its effects.
At its most basic level, mindfulness invites us to wake up to the present moment, and notice that we’re breathing – “I’m awake and alive, right now.” While this might not strike you as a reason to rejoice, if you stop to think about it, that we breathe automatically is truly amazing. Mindfulness is about stepping out of autopilot mode, and using the breath and body to ground us in the present. However, if you’re experiencing anxiety, this can get dicey.
A typical mindfulness meditation practice is to focus on the breath. Many people find that this promotes relaxation and calmness, but if you are prone to anxiety, focusing on your breath can actually make you more anxious. You might notice that your breathing is kind of shallow, or a bit rapid, so you try to take a deep breath or slow your breathing down, but then the harder you try the more it seems to speed up, until it feels like you can’t breathe at all! Has that ever happened to you?
And did you then conclude “meditation is not for me?” The problem here is that bringing conscious awareness to automatic processes in the mind and body, while beneficial for most people, can backfire for anxious people, who are already hyper-focused on things that other people don’t even notice, like their breathing, heart rate, and worrisome thoughts. But if you give up on mindfulness and meditation so soon, you don’t give your mind and body a chance to reap the benefits, which are signficant. Herein lies the paradox of mindfulness.
Whether it’s your breath, or your life, if you start with wanting things to be different than they are, you create more stress and anxiety for yourself. Mindfulness invites you to just observe what is, without judgment or worry, and without needing things to be different. If you can do that, then change may come, often effortlessly. You might try this brief breath meditation:
Still not sure about meditation? Perhaps some mindful movement, like Yoga, Tai Chi, or Qi Gong, can help. One of my favorite forms of mindful movement is walking meditation, where we focus our attention on the sensations involved in walking, slowly and intentionally, just being present with our experience without needing to go anywhere. Walking this way, we find there’s actually a lot to notice, so we’re not just focused on the breath, and this, plus the gentle, rhythmic movements of our body, can help to calm the anxious mind. If you’d like to try walking meditation, here are some instructions:
A Ladder and a Map: Tools for Emotion Regulation
I recently had the opportunity, due to the pandemic, to attend a virtual version of an annual conference for psychotherapists that is usually held in Washington D.C. One of the webinars I attended, by Deb Dana, LCSW, offered some simple and practical tools to use with clients, based on a not-so-simple to explain theory, the Polyvagal Theory. The first tool is a ladder; the second, a map, or a series of maps.
Polyvagal Theory was developed by Dr Stephen Porges, and even though I’ve read his book and listened to several talks he’s given, I still have trouble clearly explaining it. In a nutshell, it merges evolutionary neurobiology with attachment theory to describe the mechanisms behind a hierarchy of human responses to perceived threats. These responses include one most of us are familiar with, the “Fight or Flight mechanism,” as well as a “Freeze” response. Porges’ theory helps us understand how emotional regulation is a function of interpersonal connection, how trauma disrupts those connections, and most importantly, how people can regain emotional equilibrium after being dysregulated by a threat or trauma.
Before I get to the ladder and the map, a little background. If you studied human anatomy in school, you learned that our autonomic nervous system (ANS) has two branches, the sympathetic (SNS) and the parasympathetic (PNS). The SNS governs movement, doing, while the PNS governs resting, being. The “fight or flight” response is generated by the SNS, while the PNS leads us to “rest and digest.” In a healthy functioning ANS, the two branches work in harmony. The sympathetic branch acts like the accelerator on a car, while the parasympathetic branch acts like the brake. Simple, right?
Here’s where it gets more complicated. The term polyvagal comes from the vagus nerve, which is a large nerve that connects the brain with the major organs of the body – lungs, heart, stomach – as well as the face, eyes and ears. The vagus nerve is like “command central” for the PNS. A key discovery of Porges was that there are two pathways of parasympathetic response, one of which causes the “freeze” response, when a person becomes immobilized in the face of a threat or trauma. The other pathway has an opposite response, leading to social engagement and connection. The immobilization response is a more primitive protective mechanism that all mammals have. The social engagement response is a more evolutionarily advanced mechanism, which only some mammals (dogs, cats, horses, elephants) and all humans have.
These two pathways are called Dorsal Vagal and Ventral Vagal. In the Dorsal Vagal response, the organism moves to shut down, in an attempt to save itself (think of how a mouse might feign death to escape from a cat, who loses interest when it stops moving). A person in this state may feel numb, disconnected, lost, abandoned, invisible, hopeless, and despairing. The Ventral Vagal response, in contrast, moves the organism to connect to self and others. A person in this state may feel alive, energized, tuned in, resourceful, flexible, and hopeful. Can you recall experiencing either, or both of these states?
The ladder is a visual representation of the range of responses to a perceived threat, from immobilization (Dorsal Vagal) at the bottom, to social engagement (Ventral Vagal) at the top, with the sympathetic responses that mobilize us (Fight or Flight) in the middle. The ladder is a tool that allows you to locate where your own response lies, to identify how dysregulated you are, and to see that it’s possible to climb out of immobilization into mobilization, and from there into engagement and connection. Most likely, you will need help to do this.
Polyvagal Theory recognizes that all of these responses are adaptive survival mechanisms that often operate below the level of conscious awareness. We don’t choose to fight, flee, or freeze, so there’s no reason to get down on ourselves when we do. The good news is that once we can come to understand what’s happening, we can learn how to move out of that automatic reaction into a more regulated state.
Connectedness is actually a biological imperative. People are inherently social beings, and our nature is to interact and form relationships with others. And it is within those interpersonal relationships that we learn to regulate our emotions. Think about how a baby cries when it is hungry, tired, or has a soiled diaper, and how its mother-caregiver offers comfort through a soothing voice, facial expression, and physical touch. These are instinctive responses that bring mother and child into “co-regulation” of their physical and emotional states, an equilibrium. As adults, we still want and need to experience co-regulation with others. When we do, we feel safe, at ease, relaxed, content. We can face challenges and function effectively in the world.
Trauma and other threats to our safety and well-being disrupt this natural drive to connect, and interfere with an individual’s ability to seek and experience co-regulation. The fight or flight responses, and especially the Dorsal Vagal collapse, are coping mechanisms designed to keep us alive, but they aren’t intended to be long-term modes of functioning. And they block us from establishing the connections we need to co-regulate and regain emotional equilibrium. The dilemma is, how can we engage and connect with others when we don’t feel safe?
This is where the map comes in. In Deb Dana’s process, therapist and client co-create a map or series of maps to first name and describe where the person may be on the ladder, and then identify the steps that will move them toward connection and social engagement. For example, if they are immobilized in a Dorsal Vagal collapse, the first steps may include establishing a sense of safety by doing grounding exercises, and to offer themselves some kind words of comfort and soothing gestures. The maps include both things the person can do on their own, and things they can do that involve others, for example, text a friend, accept a hug, or go for a walk in a park where there are other people around.
If you would like to learn more about the Polyvagal Theory, there are many YouTube videos with Stephen Porges, and a TED talk by his son Seth Porges. To learn more about Deb Dana’s approach to restoring emotional equilibrium, I recommend her new book, and podcast, “Befriending Your Nervous System.” And if you would like to work directly with a therapist to learn how you can use the ladder and maps for yourself, please contact me!
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