Anxiety and Chronic Pain are both Symptoms of something else!
Heavy feeling in your chest? Increased heart rate? Unease? Palpitations? All of these are symptoms that we associate with anxiety. For some individuals, the range of symptoms extend to muscle tension, chronic pain and other mindbody disorders. And yet, there’s one thing that we have to keep in mind when it comes to both anxiety and chronic pain: both are symptoms of something else. They are not the causes of the distress in themselves.
You do not and can not have an ‘anxious personality’!
Anxiety is a complex and often overwhelming experience that many individuals face. It is commonly mistaken as a part of one’s personality when, in fact, it is a symptom of the brain perceiving significant threats in the environment or within ourselves.
Understanding anxiety as a physiological (i.e. body-based) response allows individuals to approach it not as a fixed personality trait, but as a condition that can be managed and reduced by working with or changing the underlying threats.
Anxiety is primarily a physiological reaction that occurs when the brain interprets a real or perceived threat. This reaction triggers a series of physical changes, such as an elevated heart rate and heightened sensitivity, manifesting in feelings of discomfort, pain or even panic. It happens in both animals and human beings as a natural reaction to protect us from danger, and it cannot be controlled. Neither would you want this automatic anxiety response to disappear, because you may need this natural reaction during an emergency to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
Luckily, what can be mitigaged are the threats that we expose ourselves to. The difference between animals and human beings is that the latter tend to recall the past and predict or worry about the future (and yes, sometimes I wish it wasn’t that way!). This makes our lot more susceptible to having thoughts that generate the symptom of anxiety.
For instance, every time we think about the possibility of a loved one having an accident (a catastrophic, worrying thought about something that has not yet happened), we actually trigger the feeling of anxiety to some extent. The more we let this thought take hold of us, the more we intensify those uncomfortable physical feelings in our body.
Given the above, it is essential to recognize that these symptoms of anxiety should not define who we are, and not to end up getting at war with ourselves to try and ‘change our personality’ - this does not work and will only create more anxiety!
Instead, we can shift our focus toward managing or reducing the physiological responses, which leads to us experiencing the response of anxiety less and less (where it’s not really needed anyway!)
Below, I explore three effective strategies for calming an anxious mind by working with the brain and body.
Reduce or stop exposure to negative news
The more often we watch news about natural disasters, wars, poverty and destruction, the more we activate our sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight mechanism), which leads to feelings of anxiety, and in some individuals, also triggers chronic pain flare ups.
One can get obsessive about watching the news and talking about the bad state that the world is in today. While I don’t deny that there are many injustices and things that are not ‘ok’ in this world, thinking or talking about these constantly will remind you that you are powerless. Powerlessness is one of the feelings that generates anxiety and pain, so if you’re serious about protecting your own health, you need to reduce exposure to such content asap!
2. Reduce or stop exposure to negative and angry people
Watch this video for a more detailed explanation of these steps!
Similarly, friends or family who cannot stop talking about negative things may trigger your sympathetic nervous system. It is one thing to be with a friend during a sad or challenging moment and to express empathy or offer help. But it is a totally different thing to allow yourself to ‘consume’ a constant barrage of negativity and to allow the other person to incite anger or sadness in you.
This includes negative outlooks about health conditions, especially if they remind you of your own chronic pain, if they cause you to worry about the possibility of getting whatever symptoms or illness they are describing, or if they put doubt into you when it comes to your chosen course of healing.
Remind yourself that the other person’s perspective is different to yours, and that when one is incredibly negative, one is probably selectively focusing on the negative and refusing to ‘see’ anything positive in a given situation. Moreover, with chronic pain and health, someone’s negative and fearful outlook can have a direct effect on how one feels. The Nocebo effect (developing symptoms after hearing something scary about the body) is very common and can lead to an intensification in chronic pain syndromes, especially in those who are already health anxious.
Next come those individuals who love to get constantly angry about politics, other people in their circle or any other issue. These folks tend to have a very rigid and righteous mindset that clouds their self-awareness. Very often they are projecting their own personal, repressed issues at other people by channeling their anger or guilt outward. In fact, it can be empowering to criticise other people’s mistakes, while conveniently overlooking our own. This is not a healthy habit, and can amp up your anxiety if you constantly expose yourself to it (or if you indulge in this attitude yourself).
3. Mindfulness and other body-based practices
We can manage the physiological response of anxiety by working with the body to calm down the nervous system. It is common knowledge by now that taking deeper and more conscious breaths sends a signal to the brain that we can relax. This activates the parasymphatetic nervous system, which prompts the body to rest and repair.
Engaging in mindfulness practices allows an individual to become aware of their body and its sensations without judgment. By not getting carried away with negative thoughts about our body, and accepting whatever we are feeling or experiencing right now, we release resistance to the present moment, and as a consequence, we also release tension in the body.
Studies employing the use of neuroimaging have shown that long term meditators consistently have different gray matter morphometry in several regions, including in the cingulate cortex (a part of the brain related to self and emotion regulation), and the amygdala (the fear-center of the brain, which is related to that strong feeling of panic or stress we experience when we encounter a trigger or threat) (Lazar et al. 2005; Pagnoni and Cekic 2007; Holzel et al. 2008; Luders et al. 2009; Vestergaard-Poulsen et al. 2009; Tomasino et al. 2013; Fox et al. 2014).
Besides mindfulness, there are other practices that work directly with the body to regulate the nervous system. These include breathwork, yoga, Thai Chi, and others. If you have chronic pain, it is important that you trust your body enough to engage in such practices, especially if they involve significant movement. This is because if you have negative thoughts about the practice potentially triggering a flare up, then that negative thought will ‘supersede’ the benefit of the practice, and it may cause your pain to flare up.
Very likely, your body is totally fine, and your pain is just due to tension and dysregulation, however, you need to believe this totally before engaging in exercises, otherwise your brain will interpret these activities as dangerous. I focus more on this little-addressed aspect of chronic pain in the rest of this blog, and in my work as a Chronic Pain coach.
This is only the start of the anxiety and chronic pain journey
The above are simple tips that one can consider when you feel stressed, anxious, and confused on what to do about your anxiety or chronic pain. Starting by reducing negative exposure to stimuli that fire up your nervous system and taking some minutes a day to engage in deep breathing or mindfulness will kickstart the process of emotional reregulation, paving the way for more focus and less reactivity in your day to day life.
However, besides working with the body and whatever we expose it to, we also need to work on changing certain beliefs and attitudes. When our body is perceiving a threat, very often that threat lies either in the beliefs we have about ourselves, our body, or the world at large, or it has to do with a situation that we find ourselves in that needs to be altered or transformed.
You cannot and should not resort to these strategies while ignoring a highly toxic situation, such as a relative or colleague who may be manipulating or abusing you in some form. Neither should you try to be your own worst abuser by keeping yourself stuck in a situation that you don’t like, such as an emotionally draining job, or by refusing to give yourself whatever your heart is yearning for.
Self-love and alignment to your true values and priorities constitutes the true work of long-term recovery from anxiety and pain. If this strikes a chord with you, feel free to browse the rest of my blog or check out my PainOutsidetheBox YouTube Channel, where I tackle each topic separately in my short videos.
Listen to this guided meditation for chronic pain if you’re unsure where to start!