If a person feels tired most the time, restless, chest pain, difficulty breathing, difficulty in concentration and completing any task, it may be a sign of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). When these feelings become persistent and excessive, it can feel like it has demolished your life.
If you feel like you may be experiencing generalized anxiety disorder, you are not alone in that. In 2012, an estimated 700 000 (2.5%) Canadians aged 15 years and older reported symptoms compatible with GAD in the previous 12 months (Pelletier et al., 2017). You may feel confused about why you feel anxious sometimes without any current reason in your surroundings. You may sometimes worried that why the past trauma is still affecting you in the present moment.
Three Nervous Systems in Body:
1. Ventral vagal System (Sympathetic Nervous System):
The sympathetic nervous system is involved in preparing the body for stress-related activities. It prepares the body to either fight or fly away to deal with the situation. It slows bodily processes that are less important in emergencies, such as digestion. It causes the release of stress hormones in our body. This nervous system along with these stress hormones could lead to dry mouth, sweating, foggy and dizzy brain, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, upset stomach, hypervigilance, and muscle fatigue (Editors, 2019). Under normal conditions people react to a threat with a temporary increase in this system. As soon as the threat is over, the system dissipates, and the body returns to normal.
2. Parasympathetic system:
The parasympathetic nervous system is involved in relaxing the body when there is no stress. It slows bodily processes that leads to decreased heart rate, decreased breathing rate, digestion, sleeping and muscular relaxation (Learning).
3. Dorsal Vagal System:
Normally, the dorsal vagus serves a very positive function. It helps the body gently pendulate between arousal and relaxation (Learning).
How the anxiety Develops in Body:
1. Hyper-Activation of Sympathetic (Ventral Vagal) System:
People who have been traumatized in the past may cause much longer for the sympathetic system to return to baseline and spike quickly and disproportionately in response to mildly stressful stimuli or only perceived stimuli. The anxiety could lead to PTSD where the body continues to defend against a threat that belongs to the past. Healing from PTSD means being able to terminate this continued stress mobilization and restoring the entire organism to safety.
The system’s activation and continuous release of stress hormones lead to unbearable physiological reactions, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and low self-esteem. The person’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their lives (A., 2014).
Unfortunately, evidence suggests high rates of missed diagnoses and misdiagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder, because the symptoms are often attributed to physical causes.
2. Weakening of Parasympathetic System:
In traumatized people, the relaxing system also gets weakened due to over-stimulation of the sympathetic system. The balance between the two system is lost and the mind may not feel safe even if the person is safe in the present moment (Jodi Clarke, 2019).
3. Hyper-activation of Dorsal Vagal System:
Sometimes, there are trauma happens when fight or flight response cannot work to cope with that. The over-arousal of the sympathetic system leads the dorsal vagus nerve to shut down the entire system and we go into freeze. This is most common in trauma and in shame, which is developmental trauma (A., 2014).
How to reset the Anxious Brain:
1. Cognitive Strategies:
Learning to identify the triggers for anxiety is the first step. The purpose is to change your relationship and response to distressing thoughts. Acknowledging thoughts and then having to maintain the distance from thoughts is important to manage anxiety. Accepting that distressing thoughts occur but do not control your response, is also important. These strategies would lead to cognitive flexibility, which helps in resetting the imbalance nervous system in the body (A., 2014).
2. Somatic Strategies:
This includes the strategies to strengthen the relaxing system of our body to restore the balance. This includes, stretching, yoga, progressive muscular relaxation, butterfly hug, body scan meditation, and other somatic strategies (A., 2014).
3. Mindfulness:
Staying in the present moment helps the brain to reset the imbalanced safety circuits again, so that the person can feel safe when they are safe. Mindfulness encourages clients to observe the anxiety through observing mind, and not acting on anxiety, preventing it from controlling what they do. It also helps to be mindful of the present circumstances and clues of safety in the present moment (A., 2014).
4. Behavioral Strategies:
Keeping yourself physically active, eating well, spending time outdoors in nature, doing activities that gives the feelings of pleasure and accomplishment, and spending time with friends and family helps resetting the anxious brain (A., 2014).
5. EMDR:
Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Technique is highly effective technique to deal with anxiety. It processes the memories that are stuck in mind and are presenting in the form of anxiety. Bilateral eye-movements are used during the processing phase to move the unprocessed memories in the mind towards the adaptive nervous system of the brain, so that the symptom can resolve (Faretta & Dal Farra, 2019).
If you feel this resonates with you, please get in touch today to get started! Book a free 15-minutes Phone Consultation today. You can contact me at 902-266-2198 or you can email me at info@broadtherapy.ca .
References:
A., V. der K. B. (2014). In *The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the transformation of trauma*. essay, Viking.
Editors, B. (2019, October 4). Sympathetic nervous system: Definition, Function & Examples: Biology. Biology Dictionary. View Source
Faretta, E., & Dal Farra, M. (2019). Efficacy of EMDR therapy for anxiety disorders. *Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 13(4)*, 325–332. View Source
Jodi Clarke, M. (2019, August 5). Polyvagal theory and how it relates to social cues. Very well Mind. View Source
Learning, L. (n.d.). Biology for majors II. Lumen. View Source
Locke AB, Kirst N, Shultz CG. Diagnosis and management of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder in adults. Am Fam Physician. 2015 May 1;91(9):617-24. PMID: 25955736.
Pelletier, L., O’Donnell, S., McRae, L., & Grenier, J. (2017). The burden of generalized anxiety disorder in Canada. *Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada, 37(2)*, 54–62. View Source
