Managing anxiety & regulating your nervous system
Covid-19 has initiated the upheaval of life as we know it. Countries in lockdown, financial markets rattled, local economies upended, schools closed, travel banned, physical interaction minimalised. These rapidly changing and unpredictable times have never before been experienced and are now our new reality.
Many people are facing increasing levels of anxiety in these unpredictable times. Some are findings ways to manage that anxiety and others are operating in a state of hyperarousal panic buying mass quantities of whatever they can get their hands on. Whatever the case, down-regulating anxiety is key to staying healthy and having a strong immune system response in today’s uncertain world.
The nervous system and anxiety
Regulating our autonomic nervous system really is key to managing anxiety levels. The nervous system is our human control centre. It’s made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons that allow us to do everything from breathe to walk to dream. It controls our conscious actions like clapping hands, and the unconscious physiological processes of our body such as our heart beating.
The nervous system is made up of 2 main parts:
Sympathetic Nervous System
This is your fight, flight, freeze response. When we come across a threat, our sympathetic nervous system kicks into gear. This causes a physical response in the body. Breathing speeds up and heart rate increases so that you have extra energy and are ready to face the danger or run away. Blood flow increases to the arms and legs so that you are ready to run or fight. Blood sugar rises to get more fuel to cells that need to burn hot, and digestion is suppressed.
Parasympathetic Nervous System
This part of the nervous system has the opposite effect. It's the brake pedal to the sympathetic nervous system's gas pedal. It is the bodies ‘rest and digest’ response to bring you back to normal after the danger has passed.
Stress and the nervous system
Our stress response is triggered by the amygdala which is a part of the brain constantly surveying the environment for danger. Our amygdala respond to danger by spray painting the brain with stress hormones which in turn activate the control centres of the sympathetic nervous system. This survival mechanism is part of our basic survival hard wiring but it activates in exactly the same way to an actual threat to our life as it does to the anticipation of a threat (even if that threat never materialises).
The sympathetic nervous system is vital for survival but ongoing stress leaves it on constant alert which has many implications. It affects physical health. It weakens the immune system which is key to help us fight off any virus. It raises the chance of heart disease. It also lowers activity in the prefrontal cortex which is a key decision-making area of the brain and can cause memory loss. Chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system also ages us and can make us keep weight on as our digestion slows down.
Top tips for reducing anxiety in uncertain times
Increasing our tolerance to stress is all about learning how to downregulate the sympathetic nervous system and relax and engage the parasympathetic nervous system where we can think calmly and respond skillfully. It’s about our ability to mobilise quickly, act skilfully, take care of business and return to normal.
Here are a few tools to help with managing your nervous system:
Deep breathing
You breath shallowly when in situations of fear so that you can get more oxygen into the body- an evolutionary adaption designed to keep us safe from harm. On the other end of the spectrum deep breathing is a signal to the body that there is no threat.
Exercise: Put your hands on your lower belly. Inhale slowly through your nose so that your stomach moves out against your hand. When you inhale, fill your lungs fully and push out your abdomen. Then exhale and draw your abdomen in. Breath in for the count of 4 and out for the count of 4. Do this for a minimum of 3 rounds.
Extending the exhalation
When your sympathetic nervous system is switched on your inhalations are longer than your exhalations. So lengthening the exhalation can be a powerful down-regulation tool.
Exercise: Make your exhalations twice as long as the inhalation. Try inhaling for one, two, three; and then exhaling for one, two, three, four, five, six. Do a few rounds of this and observe the effect on the body.
Gratitude journal
On a subconscious level, gratitude journaling helps counterbalance our negativity bias. It actually matters less what you write and it matters more what you experience and feel as you write. It’s ideal to do this at the start or end of a day – just note down 3 things that you feel grateful for. The important thing is to not just go through the motions. As you write each one put your hand on your chest, right over your heart. Feel that sensation deep inside.
Cold showers
Cold showers act as a small form of oxidative stress on your nervous system. If you repeat them over time the body adapts to this increasing your resilience to stress.
Exercise: If you are new to cold showers you can start with a hot shower and then part way through switch to 30 seconds of a cold shower and then finish with a hot shower again. This guides the nervous system to remember its natural process of going between being settled/calm alert (parasympathetic) and being activated (sympathetic).
If you haven’t yet come across Wim Hof he uses both cold therapy and breathing in his method to control the sympathetic nervous system and has numerous studies to back up his process.
Guided meditation & hypnotherapy recordings
Guided recordings can be a great resource for nervous system regulation if you are dealing with high stress levels. There are so many resources online it can feel overwhelming, but here are a few complimentary guided audios which have been created specifically for helping with anxiety in the pandemic:
- Tara Brach – meditation in times of pandemic
- Jack Kornfield – compassion in times of coronavirus
- Helena Day - Hypnosis for coping with anxiety and optimising your health against viruses.
And remember, if you really find yourself struggling then you are not alone - tell someone you know or reach out to a professional. There are support networks to help you no matter where you are in the world.