Where my anxiety lives
How my face probably looks when I am feeling the anxiety
Where do I feel the anxiety in my body?
This was one of the questions asked by my trauma counselor.
I knew for sure it was a tightness in my chest with a sensation of a constant pounding, wrapped in an envelope of dread and fear. That was the extent of my awareness.
During my first nighttime attacks, I thought it was my heart beating out of control. One day when I had my first daytime attack which lasted all morning and most of the afternoon, I tracked my heart rate using my Oura ring. My ring data shows ranges of restored, relaxed, engaged and stressed. I only hit the stressed zone after I felt better, much to my surprise. This was unlike the times when I was in an online queue to purchase Taylor Swift tickets or watching a Slow Horses Season 3 episode in the evening! Check out my daytime stress spike examples below. Is this right? Not sure yet, so I’m keeping an open mind about this.
The day I had my first daytime anxiety attack.
Sitting in the online queue to purchase Taylor Swift tickets.
We watched the Season 3 episode of Slow Horses in the evening — it was seriously tense!
Over the past few weeks, I have been paying attention to where else my anxiety shows up. As I move through the RAIN process, I have found lines of anxiety tightening across my entire chest. Another line from my stomach area stretches up to the top of my abdomen, in line with my left eye. There is another section in the middle of my chest, hiding below my ribs. Other tightening occurs throughout my intestines and stomach. I wonder if there are other spots.
Using mindfulness and mind-body awareness, I track the width and length of my anxiety when it shows up, using my “inner eye”. By doing so, I lessen its grip on my wellbeing with support of strong connections, quality sleep and nutrition, physical activity, journaling and my emotional support team who nurture my body, Shiba and Bun Bun.
I am also exploring the difference between all of the above versus feeling antsy and needing to put some cardio work in, excitement (as per my examples above), anticipation, or actual physical activity. For those with greater anxiety loads, I have learned that some people can’t tell the difference. What a frightful place this world would be for those people.
Everyone struggling with anxiety feels it in their body differently and there seems to be different ways for us to learn to live with that anxiety. The key is to learn to recognize it and if you can be so bold, give it a name. Or you can be like me and call them Amy, Frank and Harry.
Photo: Tammy Brimner/TLBVelo Photography
