The Anxiety Before Anything Happens

Your heart is going too fast. Your chest is tight, your hands are restless, and your mind is scanning for what’s wrong. Often nothing is wrong yet. The anxiety has arrived before the thing it’s about.

You can’t reason with a racing heart

When anxiety hits, the instinct is to argue with it: it’s fine, there’s no reason to feel like this. It rarely works, because anxiety isn’t only a thought. It’s your body getting ready for danger, with the faster heart, the shallow breath and the tense muscles. You’re trying to talk to a system that isn’t listening to words.

So start where the anxiety starts. Calm the body first, and the mind usually follows within a few minutes. Then the thought that set it off can be looked at properly, often turning out to be a story added on top of the facts.

Naming it helps too. “I’m anxious” is a smaller, steadier thing than “something is wrong”, and research on putting feelings into words shows the label itself takes some of the heat out.

Try this when it starts

Breathe in through your nose for a count of four, then out through your mouth for a count of six, so the out-breath is always longer. Do this for two minutes, with one hand on your stomach so you can feel it move. When you’re done, say quietly what you’re feeling, in three words or fewer. Only after that, ask what the anxiety was actually about.

That’s enough for today.