I’ve always said that anxiety is a very physical thing. Sure, it is often fed by our thoughts, but it manifests in very physical symptoms. Believe it or not, how anxiety affects the body is very intentional and functional – ultimately, it is designed to keep us safe and uses a series of bodily responses to do just that. Unfortunately, for us chronic anxiety sufferers, this can get a little out of hand, especially when we know logically that there isn’t anything to actually be anxious about.
In its truest form, anxiety is an adaptive emotion, and its purpose is to protect us from danger. It does this by sending cues down to the body to prepare it for survival. All the uncomfortable sensations you might be experiencing when you are feeling anxious are actually just the body doing what it thinks it needs to be doing to keep you safe from a perceived threat. These reactions are called survival responses.
These survival responses are extremely helpful when we are facing down a grizzly bear or hiking near a cliff’s edge. But with chronic anxiety, we are often staying stuck in these responses instead of coming out of them when the threat has passed. This can be draining on the nervous system and takes a toll on our body. Luckily, if we can better understand how anxiety affects the body, we can catch it when its happening and respond accordingly.
A quick overview of the nervous system…
To better understand how anxiety affects the body, it’s important to have some working knowledge of the nervous system. Don’t worry, I will spare you the in-depth textbook version! Instead, let’s just briefly look at the 3 distinct states that characterize our nervous system:
Ventral Vagal
This is our relaxed state. We feel grounded and present when we are in this state. When faced with stress, we may feel a little anxious or irritable, but for the most part we are cool, calm and collected. This is also the state where we will feel heightened positive emotions, such as joy and excitement. This state shows up in the body as relaxed muscles, slower breathing and a steady heartbeat. We want to spend the vast majority of our time here, and be able to come back to this state easily when we are triggered out of it.
Sympathetic
This is a survival state, also known as our fight or flight state. We tend to experience a lot of big energy emotions when we are in this state, such as anxiety, panic or anger. This might show up in the body as restlessness and adrenaline, faster breathing, muscle tension, a fast heartbeat and higher blood pressure.
Dorsal Vagal
This is also a survival state, characterized by the freeze or fawn survival responses. This state is all about self-preservation – I like to see it as a turtle disappearing into its shell. You might experience more depression or apathy, shutting down, disengaging or even dissociating in this state. This can show up in the body as numbness, low energy or fatigue, shallow breathing and a super slow heart rate.
The Fantastic Four! (survival responses that is)
As we saw above, how anxiety affects the body depends on the nervous system state and survival response we find ourselves in. There are 4 main survival responses: fight, flight, freeze and fawn. Lucky for us (*sarcasm*), anxiety can show up as any of these 4 responses. Bonus points if you have the full bingo card! Let’s take a look at how each of these survival responses might actually show up in our day to day lives:
Fight
As its name suggests, this survival response might actually look like getting into a physical fight. But most of us aren’t literally duking it out every day when we are stuck in a sympathetic state. Some other ways that the fight response could show up include:
- Being argumentative or confrontational
- Yelling at someone
- Becoming defensive when provided with feedback
- Trying to control a situation and the people in it
- Being passive aggressive
Flight
This survival response manifests as literally or figuratively running away from a person, place or situation. In everyday life, this could look like:
- Avoiding something or someone
- Putting off appointments or important conversations
- Throwing yourself into one area of your life, such as work, to avoid another area of your life
- Substance use as a coping mechanism
- Increased escapism through reading, watching TV or movies, gaming, etc.
Freeze
If you’ve ever experienced a “deer caught in the headlights” moment, then you’ve experienced the freeze response. Sometimes, when we look back at a situation, we come up with so many things we wish we would have done or said. But in the moment, it’s like our brain checked out and our body just wouldn’t do anything. Some other ways that you might experience freeze include:
- Hybernating by staying in bed or becoming a couch potato for extended periods of time
- Doom scrolling on social media
- Mentally checking out and/or increased daydreaming
- Inability to make decisions
- Forgetting a lot, having difficulties focusing and/or experiencing brain fog
Fawn
This final survival response tends to be the least known. Others have also referred to it as the submit response or flop response. It’s important to remember that this response is one of our brain and body’s ultimate forms of self-preservation. It is not an active choice we make, but a learned response to support our safety. This can look like:
- People-pleasing and not being able to say no
- Taking responsibility for others’ emotions and reactions
- Prioritizing others’ needs over your own
- Staying in toxic or abusive situations or relationships
- Making life decisions based solely on others’ input
Conclusion
Anxiety affects the body in many different ways. This will look different depending on whether your anxiety triggered a sympathetic response (fight or flight) or a dorsal response (freeze or fawn). Perhaps your anxiety reliably shows up as one of these responses, or more likely it depends on the day and the situation.
The first step to managing our anxiety is to increase our awareness of how it shows up when it is triggered. My hope is that after reading this post, you are better able to recognize and name what state you are in when you are feeling anxious. Once we are armed with this information, we can more easily figure out what our body needs to feel safer so that it can come out of the survival response.
PS – looking for some strategies to help you come out of a survival response? Check out these posts:
