Your heart speeds up. You notice pressure in your chest, a knot in your stomach or a strange feeling when you breathe. Your head tries to find an explanation and, almost without noticing, another layer of fear appears:
“What if it gets worse?”
“What if something happens to me?”
“What if I lose control?”
“What if it happens to me again?”
When anxiety intensifies it can be truly frightening. And sometimes the problem is no longer only the anxiety: we start to be afraid of feeling it again.
Understanding what is happening inside us can greatly change the way we live it.
In short: anxiety is an emotional, mental and bodily response that tries to protect us from something our organism perceives as a threat. It can warn us that there is something we need to look at, attend to or take care of. When, on top of that, we start to be scared of the sensations themselves, we can enter a circle of anxiety → fear → more anxiety.
What happens in your body when anxiety appears?
Our organism is built to detect possible threats and quickly mobilise the resources needed to respond.
That is why, when the alarm goes off, the body changes.
The heart may speed up. Breathing changes. Muscles tense. We may notice sweating, trembling, dizziness, chest pressure, digestive discomfort or restlessness.
And the mind joins in too: it starts anticipating, looking for explanations and detecting possible dangers.
The familiar ones appear:
“What if…?”
What if I get dizzy?
What if it happens in front of other people?
What if I can’t get out of here?
What if I lose control?
None of this happens because your body is malfunctioning. It is trying to protect you.
The difficulty is that this alarm does not respond only to objective dangers. It can also go off at whatever our organism perceives as threatening according to our history, our experiences, our stage of life or the level of stress we have built up.
Why can anxiety be so frightening?
Because its symptoms can be intense and, when we do not understand what is happening, we may read them as a sign of danger.
Imagine you notice some palpitations.
If you think “I’m nervous, my heart has sped up”, the sensation may be unpleasant.
But if the thought appears:
“This isn’t normal. Something is going to happen to me”,
your organism receives a new threat signal.
The alarm grows.
The heart goes even faster.
You notice it.
You get more scared.
And that seems to confirm that something serious really is happening.
This is how a circle can form in which a sensation creates fear and the fear increases the sensation.
When this process reaches high intensity a panic attack can occur, in which the physical sensations and the fear can be overwhelming.
Fear of fear: “what if it happens to me again?”
After going through an intense episode, another difficulty can appear: starting to anticipate that it will happen again.
Perhaps when you wake up you check how you feel.
Before a meeting you think:
“What if I get anxious?”
Before driving:
“What if I feel ill and can’t get out?”
Before sleeping:
“What if it happens again tonight?”
The mind tries to protect us by anticipating danger. But that constant vigilance can keep the body on alert.
And the more activated the organism is, the more sensations appear.
A point can come when we are no longer afraid only of a specific situation.
We are afraid of feeling afraid.
Understanding this mechanism lets us begin to tell two things apart: what we are feeling and what we think that sensation means.
Is anxiety our enemy?
No.
Anxiety is part of our protection system and, when it appears, it may be signalling that something needs attention.
Sometimes the message is obvious: we are going through a situation that worries or scares us.
Other times we need to look a little further.
Perhaps we have been under pressure for too long.
We have gone past our limits.
We are trying to control too many things.
There is a relationship that is affecting us.
A decision that worries us.
Emotions we are not managing to listen to.
Needs that have been pushed into the background.
That is why the question does not have to be only:
“How do I make it go away?”
It can also be:
“What is this anxiety trying to point out to me?”
Anxiety can be the visible part of something that needs to be understood more deeply.
Trigger and cause are not always the same
A trigger is what sets off the alarm at a given moment.
It can be entering a crowded place, driving, speaking in front of others, a bodily sensation or even thinking:
“What if the anxiety comes back?”
But what sets off the response does not always explain why our system is so primed to react.
When anxiety keeps coming back it can help to widen the view:
What was happening in your life when it started?
What had you been holding up?
Which situations make you feel especially vulnerable?
What do you need to control?
What emotions appear?
What do you need and perhaps are not managing to attend to?
Not all anxiety has the same story. Understanding it also means understanding the person who is feeling it.
Sometimes your system has been on alert for too long
Our capacity to manage stress is not infinite.
When we rest, have support and have spaces to recover, we usually have more margin to face difficulties.
But if we build up weeks of worries, tiredness, self-demand, conflicts or responsibilities, that margin can shrink.
Then something we would normally handle starts to overwhelm us.
The feeling can appear:
“Lately everything sets me off.”
Not necessarily because everything has become more dangerous.
Perhaps your system has been trying to protect you for too long.
What can you do when anxiety appears?
When we are scared we want it to go away immediately. That is understandable. But if every sensation sets off an inner struggle, we can end up increasing the sense of danger even more.
1. Name what is happening
Instead of:
“Something terrible is happening to me”,
you can remind yourself:
“My alarm system is switched on.”
It does not automatically remove the anxiety, but it can help you understand it.
2. Come back to the present
Anxiety tends to carry us towards what might happen next.
Try asking yourself:
What is happening right now?
Look around you. Notice where you are. Rest your feet on the floor. Observe what you can see, hear or touch.
It is not about denying what you feel, but about helping your organism also register the safety information that exists in the present.
3. Separate sensation from interpretation
You can notice:
“I have pressure in my chest”
without immediately adding:
“This means I’m going to lose control”.
Ask yourself what you are feeling physically and what story your mind is building around that sensation.
4. Ask yourself what needs attention
When the intensity eases a little, widen the view.
How have you been lately?
What are you holding up?
What worries you?
What do you need?
Perhaps the body does not only need us to calm it down. Perhaps it needs us to review something.
Avoiding can bring relief… but also feed the fear
After feeling anxiety we may start avoiding situations for fear it will come back.
Stopping driving.
Avoiding certain places.
Not making plans far from home.
Needing to be accompanied.
Avoiding exercise because it raises the heart rate.
Avoidance can bring short-term relief. But if we need to give up more and more things to feel safe, anxiety can gradually make our life smaller.
It is not about forcing yourself to face what scares you all at once, but about noticing whether fear is starting to decide too much for you.
What can lie behind anxiety?
Sometimes understanding how anxiety works and learning regulation tools is enough to improve a lot.
Other times we need to go deeper.
Underneath there may be sustained stress, uncertainty, a loss, self-demand, difficulty setting boundaries, a need for control, relationship conflicts or past experiences that make certain situations feel especially threatening today.
That is why working on anxiety is not only about learning to breathe or relax.
It can also involve understanding why our system needs to be so alert and what needs to be cared for, worked through or changed.
When may it be advisable to seek help?
It can help to consult a psychologist when:
- anxiety appears very often or very intensely;
- you have panic attacks;
- you live watching out for when it will come back;
- you start avoiding places or activities;
- it interferes with sleep, work or relationships;
- you spend much of the day worried or on alert;
- the tools you used to rely on are no longer enough;
- or you feel anxiety is making your life smaller and smaller.
With new, intense or previously unassessed physical symptoms, it is also important to consult a healthcare professional to rule out other possible causes.
How can we support you at Calma de Ser?
At Calma de Ser we are not only interested in making the symptom disappear.
We want to understand your anxiety.
How it appears. When it started. What triggers it. What fear arises when you feel it. How your body responds and how it is affecting your life.
And also what may lie beneath that alarm: your stage of life, your relationships, the experiences you have lived, your needs, your boundaries or what you have been holding up for too long.
We can work on tools that help you regain regulation and safety and, at the same time, understand the message behind the distress.
Because the aim is not for you never to feel anxiety again.
It is for you to be able to listen to it without it having to shout so loud, and for the fear of feeling it to stop deciding how you live.
Frequently asked questions
Does having anxiety mean I have an anxiety disorder?
No. Anxiety can appear at different times without there being a disorder. To assess it, we look at its intensity, frequency, duration and how much it interferes with daily life.
Why does anxiety increase the more I try to control it?
Because constantly checking whether the sensations are still there keeps our attention fixed on possible danger signals and can feed the circle of fear.
Can an anxiety attack come “out of nowhere”?
It can feel that way when we do not identify a clear trigger. Sometimes physical sensations, thoughts, anticipation or factors that have been building up for a while play a part.
Can anxiety be worked on in therapy?
Yes. We can work both on regulating the symptoms and on the fear of feeling them, and explore which factors are keeping that alarm response going.
Perhaps you do not need to fight anxiety
When anxiety hits hard it is easy to feel that your body has become the problem.
But that body is trying to protect you.
Perhaps the alarm has become too sensitive. Perhaps it is reacting with an intensity that no longer helps you. Or perhaps it has been trying for a while to draw your attention to something that needs to be heard.
So, as well as asking yourself:
“How do I make it stop?”
you can start asking yourself:
“What does it need me to look at?”
Listening to anxiety does not mean letting it run your life.
It means understanding it so that it no longer needs to.
If anxiety is taking up too much room in your life, at Calma de Ser we can help you understand what lies behind it and find a different way of relating to it.
