Mindfulness Against Anxiety

If the elevator gets stuck, a tiger escapes from the zoo, or an obscure disease suddenly spreads worldwide, fear is completely normal: Your body reacts with anxious thoughts, sweaty hands, or a racing heart. But if you get stomach pains days before a dentist appointment, or it constantly feels as though a tiger is chasing you, your hormones and neurotransmitters may have become unbalanced – creating a sense of fear even though, objectively speaking, everything is actually fine.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality. – Seneca

This is where fear begins to dominate your life and becomes pathological, meaning it is caused by illness. You can no longer shake off the shadow of the tiger; it follows you into the last hiding places of your comfort zone. Mindfulness can help convince your inner pursuer that you are not part of its prey pattern – and thus curb paralyzing fear.

When is fear pathological?

Like your own fingerprint, everyone's brain is a unique masterpiece: You think, act, and feel in your own distinctive way.

Precisely because people are so different, it is difficult even for psychologists and doctors to determine when someone is ill and when they are healthy. [1] [1] Not every emotional struggle is a mental illness: Thieme Magazine (2014): Life Crisis or Illness – Where Is the Line? While one person may be unable to sleep for days before an important presentation, another may see it as a challenge and look forward to being in the spotlight. This is precisely why anxiety is not so easy to identify, either for those affected or for those around them. 

However, there are some signs that can show you whether your fear is healthy or pathological: If your quality of life is severely restricted, anxious thoughts are almost constantly present throughout the day, and your friendships or partnership are suffering, these are important warning signs of pathological fear – especially if these symptoms persist for an extended period. [2] [2] When to See a Doctor or Psychologist?: Neurologists and Psychiatrists Online: The Information Portal for Mental Health and Neurological Disorders: Anxiety Disorders – When Is Fear Pathological?

Here you can test how severe your fears are.

To address the problem as accurately as possible, pathological anxiety is divided into two forms: There are fears that are directed at something (phobias), and then there are fears that have no situations or objects as triggers and thus appear to occur without reason (generalised anxiety or panic disorders).

But even normal fears that are not pathological can be extremely unpleasant and occasionally have a major impact – for example, if fear of flying overshadows a holiday or an upcoming exam causes sleepless nights. Whether healthy or pathological, mindfulness offers a few techniques that can make your life easier.

What We Need Fear For

Even though it may sound strange, fear is important – as long as it occurs within healthy limits. It is our early warning system for anything that could harm our mind or body. Without fear, we would put ourselves in unpleasant or dangerous situations more often than necessary.

Alcohol, for example, reduces fear while you are intoxicated, and that can certainly be fun. Dancing on the table at the company party (or, currently, in front of the laptop because of COVID) may feel great at the time, but it won't feel so good the next day at work. It is healthy to exercise a certain amount of caution to avoid running into the path of a bus or making social interactions more difficult. And right now, a certain amount of fear helps us protect our society and our loved ones.

What You Have Come to Understand, You No Longer Fear. – Marie Curie

How Does Mindfulness Work Against Fear?

You Are What You Do: Thoughts and actions shape the brain, and thus also the more than 100 billion neurons wired into your thinking centre. Changes in your behaviour therefore have a direct impact on the biochemistry in your head.

Let's take a look inside: The limbic system is a brain region responsible for processing and regulating your emotions, so to speak, the control centre of your feelings. Practising mindful behaviour through yoga, breathing exercises, or walking meditations, for example, has shown significant changes in this very control centre in participants with generalized anxiety disorder. At the same time, an improvement in anxiety symptoms was also observed in the participants. [3] [3] How Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder Can Be Improved with Mindfulness Exercises: Britta K. Hölzel, Elizabeth A. Hoge, Douglas, N. Greve, Tim Gard, J. David Creswell, Kirk Warren Brown, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Carl Schwartz, Dieter Vaitl, Sara W. Lazar/Study/ScienceDirect (2013): Neural Mechanisms of Symptom Improvements in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Following Mindfulness Training Operating the control centre of your feelings calmly feels good: Instead of frantically pressing the buttons, you maintain control over your feelings and fears and can navigate everyday life more confidently.

MBCT for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Phobia

It is thanks to the doctor and founder of modern mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, that we can now walk the bridge between science and Buddhist practice.

The Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) he developed has proven particularly effective in treating anxiety disorders. The eight-week programme helps people accept negative thoughts and fears, sharpen their focus on positive things, and above all, prevent them from repeatedly slipping into an anxiety-promoting thought spiral. This can help curb rumination and worrying, which are typical of generalized anxiety disorder in particular. A study by the University of Massachusetts even showed that the effectiveness of MBCT was still measurable in participants three years later. [4] [4] Long-Term Effects Proven: John J. Miller, Ken Fletcher, Jon Kabat-Zinn/Study/ScienceDirect (1995): Three-Year Follow-up and Clinical Implications of a Mindfulness Meditation-based Stress-Reduction Intervention in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders Here you can find a course near you.

Mindfulness for Anxiety in Everyday Life

Currently, the coronavirus makes it easy for the tiger to frighten us all. Worries about an impending recession and other societal conflicts, as well as the health of loved ones or your own health, are understandably creeping into our lives. How can mindfulness help us here?

The body scan, a relaxation exercise in which you mindfully notice all parts of your body, can be quickly integrated into everyday life and shows its effects immediately after use: It reduces anxiety and lifts your mood. The body scan is easy to learn and also works quickly: In one study, a mindfulness programme lasting only three days led to changes in the amygdala, a brain structure that becomes active during fear and stress. [5] [5] The Dissolution of Body Boundaries Creates a Pleasant Feeling: Michael Dambrun/Study/ScienceDirect (2016): When the Dissolution of Perceived Body Boundaries Elicits Happiness: The Effect of Selflessness Induced by a Body Scan Meditation With just a 15-minute body scan per day, you can directly and effectively tackle the minor anxieties of everyday life. Here you can find a guided instruction from the AOK:

This exercise can also easily be used in the evening when you are falling asleep, because that is often when the carousel of thoughts really gets going and can be effectively slowed down. Just try this 20-minute program, and if you drift off to sleep feeling relaxed, all the better :-)

Another simple and effective way to let go of everyday worries is meditation, which also forms the basis of MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy). To get started, apps that teach you how to meditate and continue to guide you are ideal. The app from 7Mind, for example, offers special meditations for anxiety.  Instead of suppressing your fears and thus giving them more power, you can face them there in a safe space and gradually reduce them.

Conclusion

Clarifying where fears come from and accepting their presence are important steps toward being able to live with them. Fears cannot simply be made to disappear – and mindfulness is certainly no magic wand. However, as a companion and support, mindfulness gives you the strength to face your fears on equal terms and keep the pesky tiger at bay.

Anxiety and depression often go hand in hand. Here you can find our article on how mindfulness can also help you with depression.

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Here You Can Find Help, if you or someone close to you suffers from anxiety:

German Anxiety Self-Help
Information, self-help groups, and further support

This post was written by Frauke Harlis. She loves writing just as much as psychology and has studied both. When she's not typing or entertaining her two children, she lies on the deck of her houseboat and looks for shapes in the clouds.

Sources:

[1] Not every emotional struggle is a mental illness: Thieme Magazine (2014): Life Crisis or Illness – Where Is the Line?

[2] When to See a Doctor or Psychologist?: Neurologists and Psychiatrists Online: The Information Portal for Mental Health and Neurological Disorders: Anxiety Disorders – When Is Fear Pathological?

[3] How Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder Can Be Improved with Mindfulness Exercises: Britta K. Hölzel, Elizabeth A. Hoge, Douglas, N. Greve, Tim Gard, J. David Creswell, Kirk Warren Brown, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Carl Schwartz, Dieter Vaitl, Sara W. Lazar/Study/ScienceDirect (2013): Neural Mechanisms of Symptom Improvements in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Following Mindfulness Training

[4] Long-Term Effects Proven: John J. Miller, Ken Fletcher, Jon Kabat-Zinn/Study/ScienceDirect (1995): Three-Year Follow-up and Clinical Implications of a Mindfulness Meditation-based Stress-Reduction Intervention in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

[5] The Dissolution of Body Boundaries Creates a Pleasant Feeling: Michael Dambrun/Study/ScienceDirect (2016): When the Dissolution of Perceived Body Boundaries Elicits Happiness: The Effect of Selflessness Induced by a Body Scan Meditation