Breakthrough Treatments for Anxiety
Stress and anxiety run absolutely rampant in our society, with 1 in 4 New Zealanders estimated to be impacted by an anxiety disorder in their lifetime. In recent years we have become more aware of the toll on our collective well-being that mental health issues like stress, depression and anxiety are having, but how many of us really have a good grasp of what anxiety and stress are? Let alone how to treat them. Before we talk about breakthrough treatments for anxiety and stress, this blog will shed light on what anxiety and stress are, what there symptoms look like, and the bodys reaction to them.
Knowing more about anxiety and stress, is a great starting point in being able to reduce symptoms and look for treatment options.
Understanding Anxiety And Stress
WHAT IS STRESS?
Stress is not an easy thing to define. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing. All living systems require a certain amount of healthy stress to thrive. Bacteria in a test tube thrive more when they have lots of food and a tiny bit of chemical stress than when they just have lots of food. Humans thrive more when they have a healthy amount of physical stress, like exercise, than they do if you just feed them endlessly.
Stress is difficult, challenging and, past a certain point, very painful. People and animals alike fail to thrive when they are placed under excessive stress. Stress can cause many physical and mental imbalances, not to mention a whole bunch of unhappiness.
Often when we use the word stress, we indirectly refer to a current situation we find ourselves in. The phrase ‘I am under a lot of stress’ kind of implies that the stress is not inside you but outside of you or, more specifically, on top of you.
Then there is also the obvious fact that stress builds up over time. The only place that stress could really build up is inside of you.
In a biological sense, stress is a physical, mental, or emotional influence or factor that causes physical or mental tension. Whereas stressors are typically external triggers.
If we take the time to reflect on what feeling stressed really is, we find that stress is every bit as much to do with internal thoughts or feelings about the situation as it is with the situation itself. This is where it can be very useful to develop a clear personal distinction between one’s stress and one’s stressors. Understanding the difference between the two is the most fundamental basis for handling stress better.
The stress we feel is the internal thoughts, emotions, physical tension, responses, behaviours, and breathing patterns that form a reaction to a life situation.
Stressors are the trigger, be that an event or the environment around us, or a life situation that triggers all those unique and personal responses within you.
To really get to grips with what unhealthy stress is, we must first distinguish between what the situations are that cause us to feel stressed; and the stress feelings themselves. Once we have become fully conscious of the feelings, we untangle stress from stressors. This is awesome because it doubles our chances of reducing our stress.
When stress is the problem – we need to work on understanding and adjusting how we react and feel with the hope of reducing our stress levels.
When stressors are the problem – we fix the situation, which reduces our stress.
DO I HAVE STRESS?
The question we should be asking ourselves is, ‘do I have an unhealthy level of stress?’
We all live with some level of stress, and research shows that we don’t tend to do too well with zero stress. So rather than be concerned with whether we ‘have stress’, determining whether we have an unhealthy amount of stress is probably a more realistic and meaningful question.
One of the most challenging aspects of leading a life affected by unhealthy stress is that it generally doesn’t happen overnight. And therefore, it can be kind of hard to spot.
The phrase ‘a boiling frog’ is a reference to the myth that you can boil a frog without it jumping out of the water, as long as you raise the temperature slowly enough. A boiling frog is a person who is in a gradually worsening situation without any realisation of the harm it is doing them until it is too late. Most people living with stress are boiling frogs. Their stress has built up over time without them realising it. This makes it hard to know if you have unhealthy stress.
If your stress is at a healthy and manageable level, you will be enjoying your life. You are totally happy with your life situation. You look forward to going to work for the most part. You look forward to coming home to your family with no reservations. You have a great sleep and wake up feeling refreshed. You have no persistent health issues like pain, skin or gut complaints.
There are, however, some telling signs that can give you an indication that stress is building up. For example, if there is an amount of dread that relates to certain regular activities and interactions. If you find it hard to relax without at least two glasses of wine. If your sleep is broken. If your neck hurts a lot of the time. If you have IBS. It is highly likely that you are living with some unhealthy stress.
There isn’t really any diagnostic criteria for stress. There is no magic questionnaire, scan or blood test that can confirm or deny that you have an unhealthy level of stress in your life. But if you are very busy or somewhat unhappy about the way one or more significant themes (like work, health or relationships) are panning out, it’s likely that you have more stress in your system than is optimal.
If your stress is at a healthy and manageable level, you will be enjoying your life. You are totally happy with your life situation. You look forward to going to work for the most part. You look forward to coming home to your family with no reservations. You have a great sleep and wake up feeling refreshed. You have no persistent health issues like pain, skin or gut complaints.
There are, however, some telling signs that can give you an indication that stress is building up. For example, if there is an amount of dread that relates to certain regular activities and interactions. If you find it hard to relax without at least two glasses of wine. If your sleep is broken. If your neck hurts a lot of the time. If you have IBS. It is highly likely that you are living with some unhealthy stress.
There isn’t really any diagnostic criteria for stress. There is no magic questionnaire, scan or blood test that can confirm or deny that you have an unhealthy level of stress in your life. But if you are very busy or somewhat unhappy about the way one or more significant themes (like work, health or relationships) are panning out, it’s likely that you have more stress in your system than is optimal.
WHAT IS ANXIETY?
Anxiety is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome’. A secondary definition of anxiety is ‘a strong desire or concern to do something or for something to happen’.
The American Psychological Association defines anxiety as follows. ‘Anxiety is an emotion characterised by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure’.
Outside of the dictionary, in the real world, anxiety isn’t such a straightforward thing to define, especially when it comes to gaining a genuine grasp of our own anxiety levels.
The trap that one must be careful not to fall into with a diagnosis like anxiety is the trap of believing anxiety is just who you are. Having an issue with anxiety is not like having eyes being a particular colour or being a certain height. Having an issue with actual anxiety is more like being overweight in that it is a situation that can be improved with the proper care and the right mindset.
The majority of anxiety sufferers learn to be anxious from an early age without realising it’s happening. Other anxiety sufferers learn anxiety later in life during a period of difficult stress.
Before we discuss the true cause of anxiety, in order to understand it better, it is important to mention genetics. Genes play an integral role in everything we do, all of the challenges we face and in every one of life’s physical and mental patterns. And therefore, it is inevitable that some of us are born with genes that predispose us to anxiety more so than others. In exactly the same sense, some of us have genes that predispose us more to addiction than others. However, scientists have found that just because you are born with a specific gene doesn’t mean that it determines who you are or how healthy you are. You may have the obesity gene, but if you eat healthily and exercise a lot, you will not end up being overweight.
If you grow up in a household where anxiety is an issue for your adult carers, it is highly probable that you will develop some degree of anxiety as an adult. If you grow up in a household with persistent stress, it is also entirely possible that the seeds of an anxiety disorder could sprout later in life. In addition to anxiety learned early in life or over extended periods, those with a sensitive disposition may develop anxiety as the result of a single significant traumatic event.
All these scenarios involve persistent activation or overloading of the brain’s fight or flight centres, which then remain over-activated going forward. On a neurological level, persistent overactivity of the brain and the body’s fight or flight system is the fundamental cause of anxiety.
In summary, when trying to deal with or manage your anxiety, it’s important to understand that:
- Genes do not totally determine if you are likely to suffer from anxiety
- Anxiety can be managed in much the same way as issues like addiction and obesity.
- Anxiety is largely caused by over-activation of the fight or flight centres in the brain.
DO I HAVE ANXIETY?
As mentioned above, one of the hardest things about identifying anxiety is that a substantial portion of the anxiety we feel is usually completely unconscious. In addition, many of us have had some level of anxiety for so long that we don’t know any different. The patterns of thinking and feeling that lead to chronic anxiety tend to start early in life, and by the time we realise we have anxiety as adults, they can tend to feel pretty normal; because we pretty much don’t know anything else.
Many anxiety sufferers don’t realise that they have anxiety until it begins to create full-blown physical symptoms, like panic attacks and anxiety attacks.
An anxiety attack is to anxiety what a heart attack is to heart disease. Full-blown anxiety attacks are the end of the line (not the beginning). They represent a very substantial buildup of anxiety, to the point that the anxiety pot ultimately boils over.
Prior to an ‘attack of anxiety’, there is a long period where the body holds very strong patterns of muscular and respiratory tension. The anxiety sufferer tends to feel these at some low level but mostly suppresses these feelings. By the time they have an anxiety attack, most anxiety sufferers have been shallow breathing for years without realising it. Before an anxiety attack, many anxiety sufferers also exhibit more subtle physical symptoms that they simply didn’t realise were caused by their anxiety. Stubborn aches and pains, autoimmune conditions, skin complaints, asthma, and digestive complaints like IBS can all be clues that someone has developed chronic anxiety, often without realising it.
However, If you are a more sensitive personality type with good body awareness, it is more likely that you will identify your anxiety before it becomes more extreme. But at what stage can we indeed be sure that we have an issue with anxiety?
Physical symptoms of anxiety can include but are not limited to – Cold or sweaty hands – chest pain – dry mouth – heart racing – feeling nauseous – tingling or numbness in hands or feet – muscle tension – a feeling of struggling to breathe – insomnia – chronic niggly health issues.
Mental and emotional symptoms of anxiety can include – feelings of panic – fear and restlessness – nightmares – traumatic flashbacks – obsessive thoughts – addictive behaviours – social uneasiness.
Naturally, gaining confirmation that you have anxiety or an anxiety disorder involves a level of professional analysis. There are diagnostic tools that professionals use to diagnose anxiety. These tools are based on sets of symptoms. The basic idea is that if your signs and symptoms are above a certain level, we make a diagnosis and declare you have anxiety.
A case could be made that anxiety is a non-medical situation for many sufferers but rather a well-being issue. So, from a non-medical perspective, if you feel persistent uneasiness or fear in some form or another that is sufficient to make you unhappy, it could be said that you have anxiety. Regardless of what diagnostic checkboxes you do or don’t check, you have the right to feel good about yourself and your life. So, whether you have an official case of anxiety or not, if you aren’t happy, it may be time to start the journey towards healing whatever it is that needs to heal so that you can live your best life.
Mental and emotional symptoms of anxiety can include – feelings of panic – fear and restlessness – nightmares – traumatic flashbacks – obsessive thoughts – addictive behaviours – social uneasiness.
Naturally, gaining confirmation that you have anxiety or an anxiety disorder involves a level of professional analysis. There are diagnostic tools that professionals use to diagnose anxiety. These tools are based on sets of symptoms. The basic idea is that if your signs and symptoms are above a certain level, we make a diagnosis and declare you have anxiety.
A case could be made that anxiety is a non-medical situation for many sufferers but rather a well-being issue. So, from a non-medical perspective, if you feel persistent uneasiness or fear in some form or another that is sufficient to make you unhappy, it could be said that you have anxiety. Regardless of what diagnostic checkboxes you do or don’t check, you have the right to feel good about yourself and your life. So, whether you have an official case of anxiety or not, if you aren’t happy, it may be time to start the journey towards healing whatever it is that needs to heal so that you can live your best life.
Stress, Anxiety And The Amygdala
WHAT IS THE AMYGDALA?
Often the best foundations for understanding and treating anxiety, anxiety disorders and stress are those that recognise that we are still hunter-gatherers on a cellular level. We have only lived these strange domestic and urban lives for the blink of an evolutionary eye, so our bodies are totally unaltered from their wild state.
There is a structure in the middle of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is about the size and shape of an almond and sits in the temporal lobe. If all of the organs and nerve pathways involved in fight-flight-freeze were instruments in an orchestra, the amygdala would be the conductor.
When ‘shit goes down’, the amygdala signals the adrenal glands, heart, lungs, and muscles. The mobilisation of these systems hits the fight or flight accelerator so danger can be eliminated or evaded. As a system, it is a bit like a drag racing car, designed for short bursts of intense movement; and perhaps obviously, it is not ideal for doing the school run. But sadly, many of us do end up doing the school run in the adrenal/amygdala-sponsored drag racer.
Early in our evolutionary journey, the amygdala worked well, becoming activated by fleeting survival situations involving predators and the like. When the danger passes, the amygdala switches back off in much the same way that a smoke alarm switches off when it can’t sense smoke anymore. Unfortunately, modern life has a way of switching the amygdala on persistently in a way that the alarm ends up permanently activated. This leaves people with anxiety and stress in a semi-permanent state of fight or flight.
Half of the issue is that the lives we lead are ‘triggery’. Sadly, the amygdala doesn’t know the difference between a sabre-toothed badger and a passive-aggressive line manager. So, if your boss triggers your fight or flight response daily, you might as well be in a permanent survival situation as far as your amygdala is concerned. And that’s a problem.
The other half of the problem is that we have largely lost the ability to ‘shake off’ the stress that we do experience. Animals have ways of expelling stress from their fight or flight system using movement, and so do we, but most of us have lost these natural abilities. But we can get them back; more about that later.
If you are willing to look at your stress and/or anxiety as a problem with the overloading of your amygdala, it’s a significant step towards understanding the tools and tricks that work to reduce the amount of stress and anxiety stored in our bodies and brains.
HOW ARE STRESS AND ANXIETY LEVELS IMPACTED BY THE AMYGDALA?
The fact that the amygdala can be overloaded and remain in the ‘on position’ after a stress-inducing event opens up the possibility that it is partly the adversity in our past that influences the stress and anxiety we experience today. If past stressors have left their mark on us, they can have a powerful influence on how we manage life’s challenges today. So, let’s be really upfront about trauma. There is every probability that you are reading this and are quite certain that you don’t have any trauma. Yet that may be simply because you use the term trauma differently from how trauma experts and researchers use it. So please bear with.
If you have had the misfortune to have experienced a major traumatic event in your life, it stands to reason that some of the stress or anxiety you experience today could be the result of unresolved trauma. We don’t all walk away from traumatic events emotionally unscathed any more than we do physically unscathed. If you doubt that, ask any war veteran. But there are far more subtle forms of trauma than many people with stress and anxiety carry.
Trauma experts don’t view trauma as being limited to car crashes, assaults and mortar attacks. Rather they classify trauma as being what happens when the fight or flight system is overloaded, exceeding its coping/processing mechanisms in a given moment. The threshold for this can be surprisingly low, especially when we are very young, very tired or very stressed. Trauma can also occur incrementally, like a kind of emotional repetitive strain injury. A sensitive child living or studying in a persistently stressful or unpredictable environment can easily accrue trauma over time without there having been any obvious ‘blood spilled’.
So, in our enquiry into whether our own nervous system holds any trauma, it can be worth reflecting on whether we may qualify for some of these more subtle forms of trauma. There are very few of us who haven’t been through some adversity during certain times in our life. If you feel resistant to this, that in itself could be a sign that something has been suppressed and is trying to stay hidden. The human subconscious is a vast and complex realm and should not be underestimated, and there is nothing to be lost by keeping an open mind.
If you are open to the possibility that a part of your present-day stress or anxiety could be formed partly by some old wound (in the trauma sense), the question is, how do you figure out if it is the case? This is where treatment, tools and therapies come into play. Many of the most effective ways of clearing trauma out of the body and brain double up as investigations into whether there is any old stuff in there.
Breakthrough Treatments for Anxiety
This list of treatments for anxiety and stress will give you a good overview of some of the best breakthrough treatments for anxiety currently available.
EMDR – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
EMDR is a rapidly growing therapy that is often used as a treatment for stress and anxiety caused by emotionally difficult experiences in a person’s past. EMDR is an unusual type of therapy in that rather than being a traditional talk therapy like counselling; it is based on eye movements.
EMDR uses specific rhythmic movements to unwind traumatic memories where they are stored in the nervous system. EMDR can be led by a therapist but can also be done alone. The effects of EMDR essentially take the heat and strong emotion out of stressful and traumatic memories. Leaving the memories intact but without the emotional pain associated with them. Many people find this makes a massive difference to their anxiety levels and their ability to manage stress in the present.
Brainwave Entrainment – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
Brainwave entrainment is a therapy many people use to reduce the symptoms of stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. Like EMDR, Brainwave Entrainment is an unusual and cutting-edge form of therapy that does not involve talking to a therapist. Instead, Brainwave Entrainment stimulates light receptive cells in the centre of the brain in order to reduce fight or flight activity in the amygdala.
It is definitely not common knowledge that we have cells in the centre of our brain that are just as receptive to light as eye and skin cells. But neuroscientists have known this for a long time. Many of our body’s most fundamental processes, like sleep, are regulated by light receptive cells deep in the brain. Anxiety and stress sufferers frequently find instant relief with Brainwave Entrainment, and with repeat sessions, most report significant reductions in their symptoms and ability to cope with life in the longer term.
NLP – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
Unlike EMDR and Brainwave Entrainment, NLP is a talk therapy, much like a counselling psychologist and therapist. The secret behind NLP’s ability to create such profound change in anxiety disorders and stress is the highly specialised use of language that taps into the subconscious mind.
Surprisingly NLP was originally developed by a therapist and a computer programmer in the 1970s. The inventors developed NLP by closely analysing the language used by extremely high-level counsellors, therapists and hypnotherapists. Based on these language patterns, they developed a model of communication that can bypass the resistance of the conscious mind and create deep and lasting changes and how the subconscious perceives reality. Many people seeking treatment for anxiety and stress find NLP tools immeasurably beneficial.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is, in many ways, very much a traditional talk therapy. However, rather than focusing on unpacking and analysing problems, it takes a highly practical and solution-focused approach to the treatment of stress and anxiety. In some ways, CBT is more like a form of coaching than a form of traditional psychotherapy. Psychotherapy focuses on unpacking and understanding the past and how it affects the present, while Cognitive Behavioural Therapy focuses on the practicalities of coping better with anxiety and stress.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is an incredibly popular and empowering form of treatment for anxiety and stress; because it teaches you how to cope better with life’s challenges using specific tools. If you are suffering from anxiety or stress and looking for a highly practical set of tools that you can use to manage your thoughts and feelings in a more constructive way, CBT could be for you.
Trauma Release Exercises – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
Stress and anxiety cause a considerable amount of tension again to build up in muscle tissue. These buildups of tension in muscle tissue are a major cause of stress and anxiety buildup/perpetuation in the long term. Trauma-release exercises are among the most unusual yet immensely effective ways of managing anxiety disorders and stress. The majority of treatments for anxiety and stress focus on creating changes within the brain, whereas trauma release exercises release stress from where it is stored in the body.
Trauma release, a.k.a. TRE sessions involve holding specific muscles in mild stress postures until they begin to tremble and shake. The shaking is stress and anxiety patterns unwinding themselves from the muscle tissue where they get stored.
Hypnotherapy – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
Hypnotherapy is a long-standing treatment that many people choose to manage stress and anxiety. Hypnotherapists use specific language patterns to relax you. This enables positive suggestions to be ‘planted’ in the subconscious, where many of the thought patterns that fuel stress and anxiety play out.
It is a frustrating yet also curious fact that no matter how much you want to stop feeling anxious, simply stopping the stream of anxious thoughts just isn’t possible for most of us. The theory behind hypnotherapy is that this is because decisions about what to focus on and how are determined within the subconscious. Hypnotherapists attempt to coach and negotiate with the subconscious mind using hypnotic induction, which drops the client into a deeply relaxed and suggestive state. Contrary to common belief, most people under hypnosis are actually totally aware of their surroundings and remember the entire process. Knowing this makes hypnotherapy a far more approachable option for stress and anxiety sufferers.
Psychedelic Therapies – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
The days when psychedelics like mushrooms and LSD were thought of as dangerous recreational drugs are long gone. Some of the world’s most prestigious medical research institutions like Kings College London and John’s Hopkins are studying Psychedelic Assisted Therapies. And not only that, they are reporting excellent results.
Profound emotional and psychological shifts, reductions in stress, addiction, depression, PTSD and anxiety are all now well documented in the literature on Psychedelic Assisted Therapies. Most crucially, these benefits have been found not to be short-lived, with many subjects reporting residual benefits that last months and years after therapy. There is still much to be learned about how Psychedelics influence the brain, but we do know they are extraordinarily safe, and we do know that they work. Legislation has begun to change as a result, with various US states lifting the long-term prohibition of psilocybin mushrooms.
Tapping – A Breakthrough Treatment for Anxiety
Emotional freedom technique (EFT) is an alternative treatment for the symptoms of stress and anxiety that many people report excellent results with. EFT is also referred to as tapping therapy as sessions involve gentle tapping on the acupuncture meridians of the face and scalp.
The therapy’s intent is to create a balance in your energy system and treat pain. According to its developer, Gary Craig, a disruption in energy is the cause of all negative emotions and pain.
Systems like EFT can be a little challenging for us to understand as most of the therapies we choose traditionally involve talking or prescription medication. It is becoming apparent, however, that it would be wise to keep an open mind about forms of therapy we know little about. Psychology researchers were very sceptical about techniques like EFT, EMDR and Psychedelic Assisted Therapies until they took the time to conduct rigorous research into their effects. At this point, all have been found to be hugely effective in the treatment of complaints related to stress and anxiety.
Conclusion
The more we understand the nature of stress and anxiety, the better shot we have at making informed treatment decisions along our road to recovery.
The most important things to understand about stress and anxiety are that they are treatable and that they are manageable. It isn’t necessarily quick or easy for all of us, but finding relief is a virtual certainty if you are willing to persist in your search for the right tools that work for your particular case of stress or anxiety. Being patient and persistent is the key because not all treatments and perspectives work for all people.