Anxiety has a big physical component to it.
You could feel:
- Your body starts sweating
- Your heart rate increase and it can feel like your chest is going to explode with that heart rate going like it is.
- Wobbly legs and feeling like the blood is going to all the different extremities to get you running away.
- The digestive system shuts down because your body isn’t focusing on the digestive system when there’s danger.
So there are a lot of physical experiences that come along with the big emotion of anxiety.
Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions
Something else I wanted to help you understand is the thoughts, feelings, and actions that happen with anxiety too because although it’s quite tricky to understand if we put it into thoughts, feelings, and actions, it can make more sense as to what the heck is going on.
Actions: Avoidance and Fighting
Other actions that can happen are avoidance and fighting too. Major pieces of anxiety are you can either go to avoidance or you can go to the fighting back when that anxiety strikes.
Anxiety is often wrapped up with anger and with feeling overwhelmed. When you are uncertain or unsure about something happening, think about what other feelings you feel at the same time as you feel anxiety.
Thoughts: “What if’s” and Meaningful Moments
The thoughts that you experience can increase the same amount of feelings that you have as well as the actions that you have.
The more you think “what if something bad happens?” Or “what if I don’t hold my own at this meeting tomorrow” and it’s something meaningful to you, it can also increase the anxiety around that situation.
Stop to check what your thoughts are about the situation too because that can be increasing your anxiety too.
There is anxiety that has a very physical outlet in your body when you feel that surge of anxiety, then there are the thoughts, feelings, and actions that come along with that.
They All Play A Part in Anxiety
Thoughts are often “what if” thoughts, actions are often avoidance or fighting, and feelings are often anxiety, anger, overwhelm, and uncertainty.
Having a look at that whole picture and understanding how your thoughts, feelings, and actions all interlink, might help you understand the full picture of anxiety and what’s really happening at the moment too.
