How to Recognize Anxiety in Your Life

How is anxiety different from stress? How does anxiety present in your body? What does anxiety feel like?

When you feel anxious and overwhelmed, and your thoughts are racing, it can feel like you are immersed in a huge wave where all that you experience is one big emotion, all over.

Once you start to distinguish how anxiety can show up, physically and mentally, it becomes easier to notice the pull of the wave, so you can swim to shore before it arrives.

Today, we’re talking about what you can do when you notice anxiety is present, and how you can best bring yourself back to calmness.

In This Episode:

Anxiety versus stress
Practice bodily awareness
How to find your calm baseline
Notice your self-talk

Anxiety versus stress

‘Stress is more [about] feeling burned out, overwhelmed [with] low energy, and anxiety is worry and concern about the future and what’s going to happen.’ – Julia Smith

One of the main differences between anxiety and stress is that anxiety has a high-energy feeling that sets you buzzing or feeling like you’re unable to stop or slow down.

On the other hand, stress can have a more low-energy feeling that leaves you experiencing mental, physical, and even emotional fatigue.

‘Stress is [what] I feel when I’m trying to do too many things at once which is a little different from [feeling] anxious and worried about something in the future.’ – Jane Donovan

Practice bodily awareness

‘Sometimes what happens is [that] we start to feel anxious and worried and we don’t notice or pay attention to it, we just go down that road until we’re overwhelmed … we want to talk about being more sensitive to when it starts to show up so that we can do something about it sooner.’ – Jane Donovan

Be body aware, and learn how to pay attention to how you feel. Are your shoulders pulled up to your ears? Is your chest tight? Is your breathing shallow? Are your legs bouncing or shaking? Do you experience butterflies in your stomach?

‘Start to notice those early little things, and then you can balance that against what your relaxed body feels like.’ – Jane Donovan

Consider the pace of your life. Are stress and anxiety often present in your day?

‘Sometimes anxiety can start to be the norm in your life and it’s hard to recognise what’s going on because it’s been a long time since you felt more relaxed.’ – Julia Smith

How to find your calm baseline

Find a quiet moment to sit still with yourself
Turn your attention inward to how you feel and your thoughts
Notice what your body feels like

The more that you practice being present and self-aware of your bodily sensations, the better you will become at identifying when you feel anxious and when you feel calm.

Then, if you do begin to feel anxiety rising, you can take a moment to be present with yourself and breathe deeply, and stop that anxiety from building any further. You can then bring yourself back to that calm baseline.

‘If we can keep checking in at those early stages, we might be less likely to escalate to something that’s hard to handle.’ – Jane Donovan

Notice your self-talk

Your self-talk is going on in the background even when you are not aware of it, and it has a big influence on how to approach your day and the tasks before you.

Are you perhaps unintentionally upsetting yourself more by talking poorly about yourself, or ramping up the intensity of what’s ahead of you? Noticing this, and taking steps to change it, is a very powerful step to reduce anxiety.

‘We’re making ourselves worried and nervous about it and we might not even be aware [that we’re doing it]. So, that slowing down and checking in with your body, “Oh, I’m feeling nervous”, what am I feeling nervous about? “Oh, there’s something coming up”, and what am I telling myself about that?’ – Jane Donovan

Your inner dialogue and self-talk are constantly happening.

‘[Unchecked] anxiety can amp up that self-talk and make it more difficult for us to relax because anxiety is like, “No, I want to make you worried about this! What if this happens?” … it will amp up unhelpful self-talk.’ – Julia Smith

So, if you’re not noticing your self-talk, you may accidentally be taking yourself down an unhelpful road which may be making it worse instead of better.