Where Does Anxiety Come From? (And Why You Shouldn’t “Cure It”)

13 Nov

What is the Cure For Anxiety? (Don’t) - Youtube

There is some unfortunate advice online on how to deal with anxiety.

This is part one of my take.

A perspective backed by several interesting studies and my own personal experiences. I am writing two additional articles on where anxiety comes from and how you can use it to build the identity and life that you want.

As well as build a level of universal awareness and mental fortitude that non-anxious people cannot build.

Subscribe to the email list and I’ll notify you of the next articles.

Now…

There are two types of anxiety:

Trait anxiety
State anxiety

TRAIT anxiety comes from evolution. STATE anxiety comes from life experience.

Damaging life experiences do not increase trait anxiety, which means that by learning to understand how your own anxiety manifests and where/when it increases, you can learn to manage it… and then channel it.

Yes. Channel it.

Many medical practitioners give advice on how to “fix” anxiety or how to start feeling like a “normal” person.

Only some of them tell you the truth - that by using your obsessive or anxious feelings to your advantage…

You can develop a more expansive understanding of people, yourself and the world that people who don’t get these same feelings can’t develop.

Let’s begin.

Index:

First of all. What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a psychological and bodily reaction to stress or a threat. As you may have already heard, it does stem from evolution. I’ll touch on that shortly…

For now, let me clarify something; if you have an anxiety disorder, it is a criteria. By that, I mean that something like Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) are assigned to you if you check certain boxes. This is the same for many mental health disorders and conditions.

Here’s “the criteria” for GAD according to the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:

restlessness or nervousness

difficulty concentrating
muscle tension
sleep disturbance
irritability
becoming fatigued easily

Over the course of 6 months, all of these must be present on more days than one to some degree.

You hear that?

That’s a measurement. You are NOT your anxiety.

What does that mean? These two things:

You can learn to manage anxiety... to a point where you no longer meet its criteria. Anxious tendencies can be channelled to substantially improve your mental fortitude, empathy and understanding of the world. It is in your control. However, this is easier said than done depending on the type of psychological condition and its severity.
Labelling yourself with diagnoses can be detrimental, by obsessively focusing on the condition and limiting your capabilities. However, some people do find labels helpful in understanding themselves and how they feel. It’s good to acknowledge both sides.

A 2018 study by The Lancet Psychiatry saw that only SOME patients found mental diagnoses helpful. Others found them deeply oppressive, felt stigmatised by them and found it more difficult to move past their condition.

(I can’t currently get institutional access to the full study… so I don’t have the exact numbers).

Regardless, I think both acceptance of the anxiety you feel and a drive to live a better life in spite of it - are necessary for healing and pushing forward.

Where does anxiety come from?

There’s two parts to this answer. Let’s quickly cover the first.

Where in the BODY does anxiety come from?

Anxiety starts in the limbic system, specifically the amygdala. This is the part of the brain that sends neurological distress signals around the body. In our paleolithic ancestors, these signals were released in response to acute threats in what is called an "immediate return environment" (James Clear).

Now the for juice…

Why do I feel anxious for no reason? Where does anxiety REALLY come from?

Thanks to technology and a more expansive social hierarchy among the working population, we now live in a "delayed return environment" (James Clear). This means we stress about what's going to happen next week, next month or next year.

Alternatively, the immediate return environment the first humans lived in only made us anxious to find food, water or run away from dangerous animals.

There is one key difference between these two environments:

The immediate environment invites an immediate relief of anxiety.
The delayed environment doesn't see relief until some time in the future.

This is what leads to chronic stress today, because the future is so uncertain.

Examples of today’s delayed return environment could be:

Working hard to avoid getting laid off in a recession. You don't know whether the extra hard work was worth it.
Similarly, most people need to wait for a paycheck. If you're financially stressed, you might ask, "what if it doesn't come?" You won't know until you get it (or don't).
Another example is saving money for retirement, when often people don't know when that day will come or if they will live that long.
One contemporary (modern) example is travelling. During COVID, people couldn't fly. Plans would be made to see family members in other locations and people would be eagerly waiting to see if they'd be allowed to go. You might be surprised to hear that we didn’t always have airplanes. Travelling is quite a new luxury.

Why are some people more anxious than others? (The nature of anxiety)

Let me explain the two main types of anxiety; trait and state anxiety.

Trait anxiety (or neuroticism) is heavily caused by heredity as we've discussed.

If your family bloodline had higher levels of trait anxiety, you might too. Where did that chain begin? Maybe your ancestors dealt with lions more often than others, who knows?

State anxiety is the regular stress that comes with life. Such as a nervousness for a football final.

However, there is one nuance that makes these two types similar. If you have experienced traumatic experiences in either childhood or adulthood, you might develop a higher TENDENCY for state anxiety. This is not QUITE the same as developing a higher trait anxiety.

This is debated between mental health professionals.

However, based on the definitions of “trait” and “state” anxiety, this is the most likely reason why some people are more anxious than others:

Heredity (genetics) via evolution determines your levels of TRAIT anxiety at birth. This then determines how easily you feel STATE anxiety.
Then, state anxiety can be activated in MORE situations due to events that happen in your life. These situations are TRIGGERS for anxiety, but aren’t the cause.

Triggers for anxiety include what we’ve spoken about. Examples are:

Financial struggle
Saving for retirement
Relationship breakdown
Problems with friends
Difficulties in childhood
Traumatic experiences
Threat of not fitting into a social group
Fear of discomfort (like not having the luxury to travel or go out to eat)

These are not the underlying causes of anxiety. The cause is heredity and its severity depends on the persons genetics.

These examples are simply TRIGGERS for the amygdala in response to environmental stress. (In the next part to this series, I’ll talk about why anxiety is so common today)

Here’s an example of the nature of anxiety:

A child raised in an unhealthy, toxic or violent family household does not have a higher trait anxiety than when they were a baby.

However, as an adult, they experience state anxiety in a larger number of circumstances. This could mean that arguments or disagreements between people make them anxious, whereas it doesn’t make others anxious. This is a simply a new situation in which the individual feels anxious.

Here’s my point.

BECAUSE anxiety is mostly state-related and not instilled from birth, you’re able to challenge it with the right decision-making.

What are the right decisions? These two core things:

Learn to understand how your own anxiety manifests. Notice “what your brain says” when you feel anxious. What thoughts CONSISTENTLY pop up?
- Here’s an example from my own brain. It would repeat the exact words I spoke to someone in a conversation over and over… to try and affirm that I hadn’t said something awkward. Fun, right?
- Basically, noticing the stories your brain repeats helps you understand in WHAT situations you begin feeling anxious and WHY.
- Ironically, this level of self-reflection is easier for you than for people with a lower trait anxiety. Only if you practice though. I talk about this in the upcoming question.
Acknowledge the advanced level of awareness you are able to build in comparison to non-anxious people.
- In the next question, I cover a study. I loved it. It stated that people who experience excessive anxiety have greater empathetic abilities. You have the capacity to understand YOURSELF and OTHER people very well.
- Essentially, you are less likely to die due to an increased awareness of danger and also by seeing THROUGH people.
- As for other people, this means you can understand people’s intentions and have an enhanced ability to see what they’re really like. You can avoid inconspicuously dodgy people. Personally, I think this is pretty cool.

We will explore these two core points in depth in the next two articles.

How do I stop my anxiety?

Don’t.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. “That doesn’t make any sense”.

If you’re frequently anxious and have a high trait anxiety, DON’T stop it.

If you simply get anxious in some specific situations and experience more STATE anxiety, DO stop it.

This is what I mean…

Anxiety can be channelled.

I mentioned this earlier and was surprised to see that some health practitioners agree.

Here are FOUR studies by those practitioners:

A 2011 study by the Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Science found that people with a higher trait anxiety had better empathetic tendencies.
Another study in 2015, “Intelligence and emotional disorders” by Elsevier deduced that rumination or obsessive thinking by anxious people is VERY often correlated with a high verbal intelligence. What is that?
Writing. Maybe this is why I’m so good. (Just kidding, but I’m trying here)

Another 2015 study by the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology concluded that a positive view on anxiety as something to promote creativity and understanding of the world actually boosts performance. How? Because that individual now understands themselves and other people better and ultimately hold the capacity to create something special. Like writing a book, creating music, directing a movie or… publishing blogs?
One last 2015 study by eLife states that “being anxious could be good for you in a crisis”. Essentially, you will notice danger that others won’t. Awareness that you can use to your advantage.
(If you’re a creative person, I have faith in you. If you wanted to - you could achieve some pretty cool stuff)

But how do you stop STATE anxiety?

This advice gets quite basic, but let’s be honest. People often forget the baics, so here you go:

Meditate
- Become mindful of your intrusive thoughts. If you get the same thoughts continuously, give them a name whenever they come up.
- For example, when I used to overthink a lot (I still do, but I ignore it), I would say “ah, there’s the overthinking story again. I’ve heard that a million times”.
- It’s a little odd, but whatever. It works.
- This point is purely inspired by Russ Harris’ “The Reality Slap”.
Healthy lifestyle
- 8 hrs sleep per night
- Moderate to vigorous exercise 3-4 times per week.
- Stop eating takeout. Reduce saturated fats. Reduce sugars. That’s pretty much it.
- This is important, but you already know that. If you don’t currently uphold these 3 elements, it’s probably because you have no REASON to do so.
- Basically - your life could be better. I found out what my deepest ambitions were and why I wanted to achieve them and NOT live a mediocre life. Then, I started doing these things. My life quickly improved.
Get to know your anxiety
- Journal. I journaled all my thoughts every morning when I first started getting to truly know my anxiety.
- My intention was to brainstorm more things I’d talk about with my peers and also get intrusive thoughts out of my head and onto paper. I could visualise them.
Diaphragmatic breathing
- It’s great. It’s when you breathe in through the nose and your belly pushes out. NOT your chest. Check it out here

This is all I’m going to list. A lot of the other things are on BeyondBlue.com.

And I’m not sorry when I say that in my opinion - those other things are putridly unhelpful.

That’s it!

I’m going to try and write the most ACTIONABLE 3 articles that I can to help you learn to channel your anxious feelings into advantages. I mentioned these in the studies earlier.

If you’ve forgotten, here you go:

People with high anxiety have greater levels of empathy and an enhanced capacity to understand people.
Obsessive thinkers VERY often also have an advanced verbal intelligence. Such as writing.
A positive view on anxiety and how it can assist you in avoiding dangerous decisions, dangerous people and even understand the world - boosts your performance. Performance essentially means either academic achievement or other achievements. Basically, understand these 4 points and you’re one step closer to turning your overthinking tendencies into a weapon.
You will notice danger others won’t. You are more likely to pull through as humanity evolves. Maybe that’s why anxiety is still so prevalent today.