Anxiety is one of the most prevalent and potent stressors in the culture around us, and as a pervasive state in our lives it is not only profoundly uncomfortable, it is very damaging to our organs, our immune system, and our clarity of thought and feeling. It is an inevitable aftermath of the many kinds of traumas that can befall us.

The real trauma is not the thing that happened to us, but is the ways in which our bodies and minds react to it—and keep on reacting long after the thing has past. Anxiety—like all feeling states—is anchored in the body, in the neural processes, in the glandular secretions, the muscular tensions, the compulsive behaviors. It is a state of extensive dysregulation of our organisms.

It is not that we have an emotion and then the body reacts; the body’s reactions are the emotion. Anxiety is a biochemistry that is happening in the body which is then experienced in the mind as a feeling state. It is attentiveness to the body—through yoga, meditation, mindfulness in all forms—that most effectively neutralizes it

The pharmacological approach to anxiety is a multibillion dollar industry, churning out a large menu of drugs to combat this dysregulated biochemistry. And yet, the most powerful tools of mindful self-awareness we all possess is actually the most powerful way to address it.

• What is the biochemistry of anxiety and stress?  When we are confronted with danger, the brain/pituitary/adrenal axis sets off a chain of events that releases adrenaline into our system. This gives us the boost of energy we need to fuel the heightened fight or flight response. Normally this biochemical boost lasts until we have either overcome the danger of have fled from it, and then it quickly recedes. But if we cannot successfully fight or flee to resolve the threat we are traumatized by it. And when we habitually remember the moment of threat and trauma, or when we imagine threats that really are not there, this adrenaline secretion keeps pumping, and like the long term effects of any powerful stimulant it exhausts our organism and degrades our mental capacity.
• What are the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems?  The sympathetic system naturally stimulates our organs, muscles and thought processes so that we can get our day’s work done. The sympathetic  activity recedes and the parasympathetic system takes over when we relax, rest, sleep and all of our spent fuel of the day is restored. Chronic anxiety interrupts this normal cycle and prevents the restful state from taking over.
• What is the opposite of constant adrenaline flow, fight or flight mode, chronic anxiety?  It has been demonstrated that states of deep mental and physical relaxation—as in meditative states—effectively reverse the biochemistry of fear, anxiety and stress and allow our bodies and minds to restore and heal themselves.