Therapy and Medication Haven’t Healed Your Anxiety, Here’s Why (And What To Do Instead)
- May 6
- 3 min read
By Stephanie Nelson
The most common advice for anxiety is wrong.
I hear this anxiety advice 10 times a day; not only is it wrong, but it actually makes anxiety worse.
Days turn to months. Months turn to years. Years turn into decades relying on anxiety medication like an SSRI or SNRI. Decades of clocking into weekly to talk therapy, which feels like a supportive space where you enjoy being truly seen, heard and held.
But you thought you’d be off medication by now. You thought you’d have relief from the anxiety by now.
However, doctors, psychiatrists and therapists miss the significance of the nervous system in the role of anxiety. So true healing of anxiety feels elusive.
It’s become too commonplace to tell people, beginning in childhood, whenever someone feels anxious or excited, a rush of energy, the advice is to calm down.
Calming down when anxious is really bad advice.
Has anyone told you to calm down when you’ve been anxious or activated? How did that go? Did it work?
Stress isn’t a conscious choice. You don’t consciously decide to be stressed, and you don’t consciously decide to not be triggered, stressed or anxious.
From a nervous system perspective, anxiety is a manifestation of the Sympathetic Nervous System.
The Sympathetic Nervous System is commonly referred to as Fight or Flight, because of its mobilizing energy. This nervous system state wants to move to protect you. By running away, by punching, kicking, movement.
Anxiety often shows up as fast heart beat (to pump blood to your body to fight or flee), tense muscles (preparing to be used in fighting or fleeing), poor digestion (blood diverted away from organs to limbs to run or hit), foot tapping (body trying to get away by running), etc.)
This adaptive survival strategy wants to move.
So if you tell it to calm down, if you try to get it to calm down, you are essentially stripping your nervous system of defense. When that happens, your nervous system gets more stressed.
Then your nervous system moves from the Sympathetic nervous system into a state of “Shutdown” or a Dorsal Vagal response which is categorized as an immobilized response.
All vertebrates have this survival capability of withdrawal or collapse. Breath gets shallow or stopped to appear lifeless so the predator, threat, or stressor leaves it alone.
Imagine a turtle retreating back into its shell, ducking for cover inside its hardened exterior.
On the surface, you appear calm. You’re still. Immobilized. Frozen. This is often called a Freeze response.
In this immobilized place, creativity, playfulness, motivation, connection and intimacy become almost impossible to access.
Instead of healing anxiety, what I see most people doing are two things.
The first is they keep practicing anxiety. People keep running around, moving at the speed of light, trying to check off all 30 things on their to-do list in a day. Speeding through taking a shower or cooking dinner.
The other thing I see people do as a response to anxiety is “Shutdown”. Start feeling exhausted, depleted, burnt out. They become unmotivated and shame themselves for feeling lazy, lethargic or depressed when really this is their nervous system crying out to be supported.
Since anxiety wants to move, when you feel anxious, let your body move. Let the energy move.
Move away from your desk, and give yourself space to mobilize the Sympathetic energy.
You might find that moving this anxious energy feels complete in as little as a minute or two.
For efficient, effective somatic practices to mobilize Sympathetic energy, join RESOURCED so you can support your nervous system, not shut down your body's wisdom.
Connect With Stephanie
Comments