The origin and solution for anxiety (the 4 essential factors)

Anxiety is one of the psychological and emotional problems that most affect, condition and limit us. in our day to day.

In our modern era we are experiencing a veritable pandemic of anxiety. If just a few decades ago it was a problem that affected a small percentage of the population, today it is present in our lives frequently.

Why do we feel more and more anxiety? What is it that makes it last so long? Can we solve it without resorting to constant medication?

• Related article: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

The extent of anxiety problems

Before 2020, my job as a psychologist and coach consisted of accompanying people in their personal change processes, to achieve specific changes in relation to their well-being, emotional management, relationships, professional approach, or also to overcome specific difficulties related to a breakup or unexpected conflicts. Anxiety was present in a third of the people I accompanied.

Anxiety is a very common problem, but the solution cannot be limited to mass medication

to the population. Medication tackles the symptom, but not the cause of the anxiety. This is why so many people carry anxiety over the years. Anxiolytics relax our muscles and diaphragm and prevent us from reaching an anxious state, but they have a temporary effect and the secondary ones also affect us and harm our health.

For these reasons I have prepared this article, in which I include a video entitled "Anxiety: the most necessary change". I am Rubén Camacho, psychologist and coach of empoderamientohumano.com, and above all I send you my encouragement so that today is a before and after in your relationship with this unpleasant sensation and difficulty.

• You may be interested in: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

The generalization of discomfort

People who have lived through their processes of change and have overcome anxiety (which they began to experience for various reasons, such as a breakup, a pause in the couple, situations of uncertainty, fears, insecurity) every so often they ask me: "Rubén, today I felt that the anxiety has returned for a moment".

The main problem we have with anxiety is that it is such an unpleasant experience that it makes us feel afraid, and that increases anxiety. Feeling anxiety at certain moments in our life is normal (in the face of an intense experience, a move, a first day of work, when you wait for the results of medical tests, or even if you watch a movie of terror).

The problem with anxiety is not feeling it, but generalizing it. When we get used to living with anxiety we are in a state of alert, anxiety exhausts us, we feel it in the pit of our stomach and it can affect your digestion, to your rest, comes the lack of sleep, intrusive thoughts, and produces so much exhaustion that it also leads to discouragement as a mechanism of defending.

What is really anxiety? How does it originate?

Anxiety is actually a state of fear that has become widespread. We have become accustomed to living in fear, not necessarily because of a specific event, but because we did not know how to understand and manage those emotions in time.

In turn, we live in an increasingly chaotic, stressful, materialistic, and over-information-laden social, life and work system (which induces anxiety).

Imagine an animal that is in the forest and is surrounded by a perimeter of predators: feel that at any moment they are going to eat it. For this reason, he begins to breathe in a hurried way, towards his chest, with the purpose of being ready to escape at any moment. It is a breath of fear where the diaphragm expels the air quickly and presses the pit of the stomach ...

Yes, that is the reason why you feel anxiety in the pit of your stomach (and it is also the explanation of the famous "butterflies" in the stomach when we are teenagers and fall in love). Anxiety is always a result of your respiratory mechanics. It is your way of breathing that induces anxiety.

When we get used to living in a state of alert (due to frequent fears that we have not been able to manage, a very negative environment, routines stressful, not knowing how to set limits for people, overloading yourself with responsibilities that you cannot assume, etc.) anxiety is generalized and conditions our life. It is such an exhausting state that it leads to discouragement and makes it difficult to sleep and rest (breathing such a superficial way, it is totally incompatible with rest, that it needs a breath complete).

This is also why any anti-anxiety solution will be totally useless if you don't focus on your breathing first. Neither drugs nor a purely verbal therapy can solve a problem that does not occur to you only temporarily, but every day. So let's go with the 4 keys to solve anxiety and prevent it in the future.

• Related article: "6 easy relaxation techniques to combat stress"

The 4 keys to definitively solve and prevent anxiety

Live stressful experiences or traumatic in our life it is inevitable. Breathing in an alert state and feeling some anxiety is too. But Coming to live in an anxious state is neither helpful nor necessary.

First key: full breath

If the main reason is your way of breathing (which motivates everything else, since your breathing induces certain emotions to be more intense, such as fear and insecurity, as well as the intensity and frequency of intrusive thoughts), the solution must always have as a pillar the breathing.

Any process or solution that neglects your way of breathing will be like wanting to improve your physical form only with healthy food and without exercising.

To solve anxiety and prevent it, it is necessary first of all to decrease its intensity. This affects not only the unpleasant sensation of the pit of the stomach or chest but also the rest of the symptoms (such as intrusive thoughts or rumination).

Working with your breath implies that you make it complete, that is, you breathe in such a way that the air reaches your navel. This is the natural breathing of the human being when he is at peace or sound asleep.

Working with your complete breath you can gradually normalize this way of breathing. You will need to be patient, since breathing is a 24-hour habit, anxiety is sticky and we need time.

Second key: learn to understand and manage your emotions

The origin of anxiety is your respiratory mechanics, but above all the problem arises from the way you understand and manage your emotions.

Feel afraid, insecurity, guilt, anger, even discouragement, is functional and practical in certain moments of our life.

However, if we do not learn to understand and manage what we feel, these emotions can become too intense, frequent and long-lasting. This is the reason why anxiety appears: fear becomes too intense and generalizes.

The way to manage your emotions is not with activities or readings, but with your actions. It is what you do that leads you to manage your emotion in one way or another. For this reason, what works for you will always be something particular, unique, which we discover in a process of profound, practical, totally personal and private change.

• You may be interested in: "The importance of managing emotions: how you can improve your life"

Third key: patience and perseverance

Anxiety is sticky. Sometimes it lasts for years. It is therefore necessary to have patience, since the process can take a while.

However, it doesn't have to be too many months or years. If the process is practical and we work every day, the intensity of anxiety can decrease in a few weeks and we learn to manage it in a stable way.

Fourth key: company

We are social beings, who learn, change and transform through relationships. The company is essential in this process, but not a company that guides or advises you, but helps you to see yourself as a clean mirror to be able to understand what is happening to you with perspective and thus find solutions.

I'm going to make a special proposal now. In empoderamientohumano.com and in my profile of Psychology and Mind you can find the option to schedule an exploratory session with me, which we can have via WhatsApp. In that session, totally confidential and private, we get to know each other, we delve into your problems, We find a stable solution and see how I can accompany you so that you can overcome anxiety to 100%.

Overcoming anxiety is possible if the change occurs in you. I know how difficult it is, so I send you a lot of encouragement, enthusiasm, commitment and above all a lot of confidence.