Solutions for Anxiety
Anxiety is rife in our society.
In the wake of the Covid Pandemic, levels of stress and anxiety are higher than ever.
It is unclear what will lie ahead as the storm clouds of Covid clear, but it seems likely that the aftermath of Covid will include many people with mental health challenges including anxiety. It may be that in part this is due to separation and isolation.
Dr. Gabor Mate says that “Anxiety links to the way we look at the world. Often when young children go unattended to and don’t have their needs met, their systems get activated and panic and grief sets in. They are taught that the world is not safe. It is a response to their environment! This continues on through life and becomes a way of being in the adult.”
With a society that’s increasingly rushed, medicated, technologically orientated and less focussed on quality interactions, it is unlikely that this will change any time soon. We seem to face a less kind, less connected, more invasive, less cohesive technological ubiquitous world.
However all is not lost.
We have to slow down and wrestle control of our minds and hearts back and find strategies for combating what many people face. One such issue is a kind of social media fatigue. The pace of the culture, the narratives of digital connection combined with the perceived absence of that bringing a coming together and the unknown stress that tech imposes on the nervous system all play a role and contribute.
Addressing our own personal wounds of separation means a total shift in perception. This requires silence and space and the shifting of habitual patterns and frequencies. For me, this involved turning to spirituality and accessing the following qualities:
- Silence
- Slowness
- Spaciousness
- Groundedness
- Connectedness
There are a wide variety of approach’s that people can adopt to manage, reduce and even alleviate their anxiety completely.
These solutions include:
- Spending time in nature
- Resting eating and sleeping sufficiently.
- Receiving bodywork (e.g. Massage, Reiki, Craniosacral Therapy)
- Physical activity (Exercising, walking running, swimming)
- Practicing meditation (Sitting, standing, walking, Lying down)
- Working with a spiritual teacher or guide.
- Engaging in a mind body practice (Yoga/ Tai Chi/ Qi Gong)
- Dancing
- Singing
- Art creation/ leant with a musical instrument.
All of these move the individual into a more connected state within their body, mind and spirit.
Yoga
Authentic Yoga practices work to bring the body, breath and mind into balance, by releasing tension and and anxiety through a process that brings the practitioner towards wholeness and higher states of health and vitality. Through the reintegration and reconnection of energetic and physical components of self, yoga begins to reorganize the underpinnings of the human system and return us to a connected state.
This sense of perceivable connectedness which is at the heart of Yoga or Yoga Therapy begins to heal us and can begin to allow the individual to address, for themselves, this residual fragmentation that likely remains as a legacy from childhood. By engaging in this process we begin to re-parent ourselves.
Those that are parents in this life can also become more conscious of their decisions and choices when being with their children.
Yoga therapy practitioners work with their clients to find holistic yoga based solutions to address issues that arise throughout life, such as a diagnosis of anxiety received from the medical profession.
Would you benefit from finding a greater sense of connection in your life and to lessen the anxiety?
Perhaps Yoga offers some answers and further lines of inquiry.