Anxiety and the Stress Response
How mindful yoga practices can help restore calm in the body/mind.
Anxiety and I have lived together for a long, long time. Over the years, in addition to studying the causes of anxiety, I’ve become really interested in how mindful yoga and meditative practices help in reducing the symptoms. I won’t get really scientific here, but I do want to share a little about how anxiety affects the nervous system.
Although humans have evolved since the beginning of our time on Earth, the part of our brain that triggers reactions to stressful circumstances has not. Our brains still operate under the assumption that we are being chased by wild beasts in the wilderness. Whenever we experience fear, our brain goes into this reptilian stress response of “fight, flight or freeze”. To put it simply, we either stay and fight, try to run away, or lie down and give up.
Dr. Dan Siegal came up with the term “Window of Tolerance” to describe our understanding of normal brain and physiological responses to stress in the nervous system.
Window of Tolerance:
Too much stress is a state of “hyper-arousal” and includes anger, anxiety, overwhelm and the fight/flight responses. In contrast, “hypo-arousal” is a state of inertia where we are passive, withdrawn, freeze and feel depressed. The optimum state is in the middle. That’s where we feel grounded, stable and make good decisions. I’m going to focus on the state of anxiety here.
As you can see by the yellow line in the diagram, throughout the day our stress arousal fluctuates depending on what we are doing. It is normal to go up and down throughout the day. Uncomfortable symptoms of anxiety occur when we go above our window of tolerance. At that point we need to start engaging in some self-regulation and self-soothing behaviours to get us back in our window, and that’s where mindful practices are really useful. With practice, we learn to recognize when we’re reaching our maximum in the window of tolerance and then we may perhaps try to connect to the breath, go for a mindful walk, or engage in some gentle exercise.
When we go beyond the window and the anxiety builds, it is sometimes necessary to find ways to get rid of the excess stress before we can sooth ourselves with breathing and slower practices. Sometimes we’re just too agitated to slow down. At that point, some form of movement is often helpful such as a brisk walk, run/jog, dancing, or bike riding, etc., before engaging in slower, more reflective practices.
Dr. Peter Levine, who has done a lot of work in stress disorders and trauma research, suggests that by shaking our body we can also eliminate excess stress and bring our bodies back into our ideal window. He’s done extensive research on the subject and there are lots of resources online if you are interested.
Next time you are feeling really anxious and feel like you’re having trouble settling down, I invite you to try this short practice.
Grounding “Shake it Off” 5-minute Practice
Stand in mountain pose and feel your feet firmly planted on the ground. Take a few moments to notice how you feel. Look around the room to connect yourself to the space and feel your feet as they connect to the ground.
Start by shaking your right hand. Gradually increase the range of shaking to include your whole arm. You can make the movements as big or as small as you like.
Keep shaking your right arm as you add your left hand and then left arm. Eventually you will be shaking both arms.
While continuing to shake your arms, add your right foot and leg. After a minute or two, place your right foot back on the ground and pick up your left foot. Keep shaking! Add your neck and shoulders to make it a full body shake.
When you’ve had enough shaking, come back into mountain pose, close your eyes or lower gaze, feel your feet firmly planted on the ground, and notice how that movement made you feel.
If you want to end the practice here, then I invite you to take three deep breaths. Breathe in through the nose and out through your mouth. Sigh deeply as you exhale. Then let your breath return to its normal rhythm.
If you’re still feeling like there’s excess energy that needs to be released then you can add on to this practice by swinging your arms side to side, taking your arms up overhead and back down a few times, and doing some marching on the spot or some squats alternating with chair pose.
To help you feel calm and centred, some breathing exercises, a guided visualization, or even just closing your eyes and listening to some of your favourite music may be helpful.
When you make mindful practices part of your daily routine these tools become much easier to access when you really need them.
References:
Dr. Dan Siegal: https://drdansiegel.com
Dr. Peter Levine: https://traumahealing.org
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I’d love to hear from you so please send any comments or questions to me at sharon@sharonashtonmindfulyoga.com. Feel free to share this email with anyone else who may be interested.
You are also invited to join my free Facebook group The Journey Within Mindful Yoga and Life Change Community here where we can connect to share resources and short mindful yoga and meditation practices:
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