Polish physicist Marie Curie once said that “we stop fearing what we have learned to understand.”
This phrase reflects very well the nature of phenomena such as anxiety, whose power lies in part in its ability to put us in a very particular vicious circle: the more we try to avoid thinking about what causes us anxiety or fear, the more vulnerable we feel and the more We expose ourselves to those kinds of worries. The solution, then, is to give up trying to avoid any experience that makes us anxious, and instead, properly manage what it makes us feel through acceptance and the desire to understand what is happening in our mind. In other words: understanding anxiety helps us not fear it.
If emotions exist, it is for a reason; and this is also true in the case of the emotional states that we associate with discomfort. It is true, experiences such as fear or sadness may be something that we prefer to avoid, but that is precisely where they are useful: They motivate us to learn from our mistakes and avoid certain experiences so as not to have to go through what has made us suffer more times.
Furthermore, while in the case of sadness, it makes us make gestures and sounds that help us count on the help of others (after all, we are very social animals and we almost always live surrounded by more people), in In the case of fear, this emotion makes us actively involve ourselves in looking for ways to get away from what we fear, preferably without having to depend on others (at the same time we communicate to them that something is wrong through facial expressions).
Taking this into account, only a very deluded person could hope to never feel afraid; Living life normally involves exposing ourselves to situations that can intimidate us greatly, whether due to dangers to our physical integrity or other types of more abstract threats, such as rejection in love or dismissal from work.
Something very similar happens with anxiety; Although technically it is not a basic emotion, but a response to the emotion of fear, its existence is totally natural, and in most cases it helps us “get our act together” in situations that require it. And all this without wasting time, because in many cases we cannot afford to give ourselves a few hours to reflect on what is best for us to do next.
Now, it is true that in many cases anxiety causes us unnecessary suffering. What does he do then? Well, mainly, try to understand why we are experiencing anxiety in that problematic way, and what has caused a normal and useful process in most cases to remain “stuck” in our minds, not allowing us to move forward. If, on the other hand, we fight against anxiety by trying to suppress it, we will achieve the opposite effect to the desired one, because it is nourished by the frustration we feel when we realize that we cannot control what happens to us inside or outside our mind and, therefore, We must not let our guard down.
Anxiety is based on brain chemistry
As we have seen, both basic emotions and psychophysiological responses, among which we find anxiety, have their reason for being in the need to develop mechanisms of adaptation to the environment: it is useful for our mind to sharpen and that our reaction capacity gains speed when we detect signs of danger and that these cease when those signs disappear (or we leave those risks behind).
This “hyper-activation” of the nervous system represents a significant expenditure of energy and causes us discomfort, but the price of not going through this can be death or being the victim of a situation that leaves us injured or worn out in some way. And on the contrary, if we remain indefinitely in a state of fear or anxiety, we may be very good at skiing unnecessary risks, but our physical and mental health will deteriorate quickly and we will expose ourselves to diseases.
Thus, natural selection has meant that, over millions of years, our ancestors have developed mechanisms to maintain a certain balance in the way their mind and body function, taking into account what they perceive through what surrounds them. The key is to maintain this harmony between what the environment demands and what the body gives to adapt to each situation; and achieving this requires the existence of a kind of system of counterweights in the brain. In this way, our nervous system simultaneously emits and captures a series of hormones that, depending on which ones they are, They make us tend more towards stress and anxiety, on the one hand, or towards relaxation and serenity, on the other.
Although there are many molecules (in this case, hormones) involved in this balance, two stand out: cortisol and oxytocin. Let’s see what its effects are.
Cortisol versus oxytocin
Cortisol is often called “the stress hormone”: our bodies begin to produce large amounts of this molecule in situations that put us on edge. Thus, this hormone is one of those that activates our brain a lot, although yes, It does so at the cost of weakening other biological and psychological processes. For example, it is known that when we experience a sudden and very intense rise in cortisol, we are very likely not to generate new memories; This explains why it is common in car accident victims who do not remember anything of what happened even though they never lost consciousness.
Oxytocin, on the other hand, is a substance that induces a state of relaxation and confidence in us; When it floods our nervous system, we tend to expose our vulnerabilities more to others, and to establish emotional and intimate bonds with friends, family, etc. In this sense, it is not surprising that looking into our eyes for several seconds in a row increases the production of this hormone. Furthermore, it has been seen that the more oxytocin our body produces, the lower cortisol levels.
This is just one example of the way in which behind anxiety and stress there is a logic of seeking balance: in some situations it is appropriate for cortisol to gain prominence, and in others we can allow ourselves to let oxytocin gain influence. Both elements are necessary, and that is why to properly manage anxiety, the priority must be to understand ourselves and our adaptation strategies to the challenges (real or fictitious) that appear in our path.
Are you interested in having professional psychological assistance?
If you have considered starting a therapy process for problems caused by excessive anxiety, contact me.
My name is Natalia Bacaicoa and I am a General Health Psychologist; I can assist you in person at my center in Logroño or online by video call.
