What is anxiety?
Anxiety is the state of anticipating danger or threat,
Even when no real danger is present.
It's the body's survival system switched on at the wrong time.
Hi,
I'm Dr.
Kim.
I help people heal chronic pain with somatic movement and meditation.
Back to anxiety.
From a scientific perspective,
Anxiety begins with the brain's alarm system.
Deep inside the brain,
There's a structure called the amygdala.
Its job is to scan for danger.
If it senses something threatening,
It sends a signal to the rest of the nervous system to get ready to fight or run.
You've heard of the fight or flight response,
Right?
This is it.
The heart beats faster,
Breathing speeds up,
And muscles tighten.
This is an ancient survival response that kept our ancestors alive.
In the short term,
This response is protective.
If you step into the road and see a car coming,
You don't want to think about it.
You want your body to move instantly.
This is anxiety in its useful form.
But here's the problem.
In modern life,
That same system gets triggered not only by physical threats,
But also by deadlines,
Social pressures,
Health worries,
And email,
Or even by the stories our own mind tells us.
The body responds as though we're in danger,
Even when we're not.
And this is where anxiety starts to feel overwhelming.
The body stays revved up,
The nervous system doesn't get a chance to calm down,
And the mind keeps racing to make sense of the sensations it feels.
So let's talk about how this shows up in the body.
You might notice a tight chest,
Shallow breathing,
Or a racing heart.
Your jaw might clench,
Shoulders rise up to the ears,
Digestion slows down,
Or you might feel restless,
With the jiggly legs,
And unable to sit still.
These physical signs are the body's way of saying,
I'm preparing for danger.
In the mind,
Anxiety looks like spirals of thought.
What if scenarios,
Overthinking,
The feeling that you can't switch your brain off.
The mind is essentially trying to explain why the body feels unsafe.
And this is where the loop begins.
The body feels keyed up,
The mind reacts with racing thoughts,
Those thoughts feed more tension in the body,
And round and round it goes.
So anxiety is not only mental,
And not only physical,
It's the communication loop between both.
It is your whole system caught in a state of protection.
Now,
What can we do about it?
Most of us try to solve anxiety with talk therapy or more thinking,
Telling ourselves to calm down or to stop worrying.
We may even try meditation.
But because anxiety lives in the body,
It makes sense to work with the body.
This is where somatic practices come in.
Somatic means of the body.
These are movements that gently signal to the nervous system that it is safe to shift out of protection.
Let's try a short release together.
Lift your shoulders up towards your ears,
Just a few centimetres,
Hold them there for a moment.
And now let them drop down with a big sigh.
Do that two more times.
Feels good,
Right?
This helps to melt away some of the tension stored in your upper body.
Next,
Open your mouth wide and stretch your tongue out.
Then relax.
Do that two more times.
This softens the jaw,
Which is one of the first places anxiety hides.
Finally,
Lift your arms up in front of you and start to shake your hands and wrists like you're flicking off bad energy from your body,
Which in a sense you are when you do this.
Breathe deeply and keep flicking your hands.
This type of shaking movement is deeply therapeutic for the nervous system.
It helps you to release any stored tension in your body.
And now notice,
After just a minute of simple movement,
Something may already feel different.
So what is anxiety?
It is a natural body-mind response designed to protect you.
When it runs for too long,
It can be completely overwhelming.
But by understanding that anxiety lives both in the mind and in the body,
You also gain more ways to release it,
Not just with talking,
Journaling or meditation,
But with movement.
Gentle physical somatic signals that bring you back into balance.
This is the work I do.
Please follow me and check out more of my content on Insight Timer to find more.
Thank you so much for listening.
See you tomorrow.
