How does anxiety show up in your body?

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is feeling overwhelmed.  Anxiety is not being able to think clearly.  Anxiety is worrying over things that are out of your control.  Anxiety is that knot in your stomach that just won’t go away.

Anxiety take many forms in many people.  Whatever it looks like for you, it is real and it can take over your life.

Especially right now with all of the uncertainty that we face.

Will you get Covid-19?  Have you been exposed to it?  Will my office shut down again?  Wear a mask or don’t wear a mask?  Where do I feel safe?

So many questions & the answers can seem to change daily sometimes.

I’ve felt it too!

Like most people, I’ve felt anxiety at times.

It can make a difficult situation even more difficult.  So, right now, anxiety makes all of this uncertainty even worse.

What I try to remember is that anxiety doesn’t have to rule my life.  Instead, I can change the way that I live so that anxiety has less of a hold on me.

Here’s one way to deal with anxiety.

Sometimes anxiety can be dealt with by reconnecting to yourself.  When you take a deep breath or maybe even 10, you stop what you’re doing and give yourself that chance to notice what’s happening in the moment.

This is called awareness.

Being aware of the present moment can help you to understand whether the issue is one you can or cannot control.

If you can control it, then you have choices to make to alter the situation.  If you can’t control it, then you still have choices.  You have the choice to let it go or to continue feeling anxious about the situation.  Either way, your awareness of a situation will lead you to choices about that situation.

Awareness isn’t always easy.

For some people, when they get anxious, stopping to practice awareness in the moment is going to be very difficult to do.  To begin this awareness practice, a person has to be aware that they are feeling anxious.  Anxiety can become such a cycle in life that you don’t even notice it any more.  It becomes the normal way to be.  For those people who are in this cycle of anxiety, help in dealing with the anxiety is necessary.

Assistance in dealing with anxiety can come in many forms.  Many people benefit from medicine to help them get through the day, but some people don’t want to take drugs.  These people might look for alternative methods to deal with anxiety.  These methods can include exercise, dietary changes, meditation, writing in a journal or therapy.

One therapy that you can try is yoga therapy.

I’ve worked with many people who have anxiety, and  I’ve found that yoga therapy can be very helpful to deal with it.  Through yoga therapy, I help you to use awareness of your body to connect to a root issue.  Your root issue is often the cause of the current anxiety.  Once a root cause has been identified, you are able to make a choice to deal with it in a manner that best suits you.

I personally have used yoga therapy to identify areas of my life that are causing anxiety.  Usually, it was something that I knew was an issue, but I just didn’t realize that it was causing so many problems in my body and my life.  The practice of awareness that is so much a central part yoga therapy, has helped me to understand and connect how the anxiety was directing me in my daily life.  Once that connection was made, then I had the chance to make changes that would make my life less stressful.

I still use these same practices of awareness.  Each day I do a check-in to see what’s going on in my body.  It’s a part of my morning practice.  It’s that check-in with my body that helps me to know how to practice my yoga.  Do I feel energized or depleted?  Strong or weak?  Tight or Flexible?  All of this awareness is valuable information that helps me to combat the anxiety that can build in my body.  With my awareness, I can make shifts before the anxiety gets to a point where I don’t function as well anymore.

So, I don’t cure your anxiety through yoga therapy.  What I do is help a client to practice awareness.  You then use that awareness to connect to your needs and your goals.  Sometimes your awareness might lead to a simple change in how you practice yoga today.  And, sometimes your awareness can lead you to a major life change.  Either way,  it’s this connection to your body that often makes it more obvious what you need right now.  It’s with that connection that you can also reverse your patterns of anxiety.

Reducing anxiety takes practice and patience.

Know that it will still come back, but with time you can have a life that is not so full of anxiety.   Yoga therapy is a process, not an instant fix.  You will discover that you already have the wisdom to help with this problem.  Your new skills at awareness will help you to bring that wisdom into your life.

Whether you try yoga therapy to help with your anxiety or you try something else, it’s your turn to live with less anxiety in your life.  I believe in you & I know that you’re ready!

Schedule a free consultation to find out if yoga therapy is right for you.