You might be worrying about what could go wrong. Or you might notice your heart racing before you can name a worry. Sometimes both happen together.
Worry may involve what-if questions, repeated preparation and worst-case predictions. Reasoning or a structured exercise may sometimes help with these thoughts.
Physical anxiety can include chest tightness, a dropping sensation in the stomach, a clenched jaw, shallow breathing or a faster heartbeat. These responses may begin before you identify an anxious thought, so reasoning alone may not settle them.
When worry shows up in your thoughts, your body or both
Psychologists sometimes distinguish cognitive symptoms, such as worry, from somatic symptoms, such as tension or a racing heart. In real life they overlap, but noticing which is loudest can help you choose a useful first step.
Picture a conversation you’re worried about and you may notice your shoulders tighten or your heartbeat change. Those sensations can give you more to worry about. Thoughts and physical reactions affect one another; the mind and nervous system are already connected. We can work with that connection through attention, comfortable breathing and imagery, then look at whether it helps with the situation you chose.
Anxiety can involve attention, interpretation, memory, behaviour and physical arousal all at once. A faster heart, shallow breathing, tense muscles or a churning stomach are familiar parts of the threat response. Talking therapies can work with both thoughts and physical symptoms; the exact approach depends on the problem and the practitioner.
These sensations are not proof that you are weak or “going mad”. They are real physical responses that can appear even when there is no immediate danger. Stress, tiredness, caffeine, health conditions and learned associations can all play a part, which is why unexplained physical symptoms deserve proper assessment.
Why reasoning may not settle a physical response
The physical response can begin before you have formed a clear anxious thought. Once it is underway, “calm down” is rarely a useful instruction.
By the time you remind yourself that a meeting is safe, the physical response may already be underway. Adrenaline and muscle tension do not stop immediately in response to a verbal instruction.
Not being able to reason away a racing heart is not a character flaw. It may simply mean that the moment calls for a practical way to settle first, followed by a calmer look at the thoughts, situations and behaviours involved.
If repeated thinking is also part of the problem, the overthinking guide includes an exercise for setting aside time to consider a worry.
How an anxiety response can become over-sensitive
I start with the situations where the anxiety is difficult for you and what you would like to do differently.
Earlier experiences can shape what feels threatening now, but they are not the only explanation. Current pressure, sleep, health, avoidance and repeated habits can all keep anxiety going. Where fear has attached itself strongly to one situation or object, it may be a phobia; I have written separately about how phobias can develop.
The threat response is useful when danger is present. When it activates too readily, repeated experiences of safety and different coping responses may help reduce the reaction over time.
New experiences and repeated practice can help change how you respond, although there is no single route that suits everyone. In hypnotherapy, we may use focused attention and rehearsal to practise a different response. Other therapies use their own methods to address the same thought-body loop. If you are curious about my process, read what a first session involves; for the evidence and its limits, see does hypnotherapy work? and what the science says.
Exercise: slower exhalation and orienting
This is a simple practice you can try if it feels comfortable. It combines gentle breathing with noticing the room around you.
The principle. Slower, comfortable breathing can influence arousal, while deliberately noticing your surroundings can bring attention back to the present. Neither should be forced, and neither has to remove every sensation to be useful.
Step one: sit with support. Sit down if you can. Notice the chair supporting your weight and place your feet flat on the floor.
Step two: slow the breath gently. Let the in-breath stay easy and allow the out-breath to be a little slower, without pushing for a large breath or chasing a perfect count. Try a few comfortable cycles. If you feel dizzy, breathless or more distressed, stop and return to your normal breathing.
Step three: orient. While your breathing continues gently, let your eyes travel slowly around the space. Actually look: the corner of the window frame, the colour of the door, the way light falls on the wall. Name three things silently and specifically: “blue mug, worn carpet, tree moving outside.” Afterwards, notice whether the exercise was useful to you.
Step four: check the physical response. After a minute or two, notice your jaw, shoulders, stomach and breath again. Check whether anything feels different and whether the exercise is worth using again.
How to use it. If it helps, practise briefly at a relatively calm time before relying on it in a difficult moment. Treat it as an experiment, not a test you can pass or fail.
If you’d like to see how your thoughts and your body feed each other in the evening, try the switching-off questions.
When to seek further support
A brief practice may help in the moment, but persistent anxiety often needs a fuller assessment and plan. If your version is a background hum that rarely switches off, read why the body stays switched on. If persistent pain is involved, I explain the limits of support around persistent pain. New or unexplained chest tightness, a racing heart, breathlessness or stomach symptoms should be discussed with your GP, and significant anxiety deserves appropriate mental-health support. Hypnotherapy works alongside that care.
For more on the methods discussed here, see NHS breathing guidance and this study comparing breathing, guided imagery and muscle relaxation. Responses vary, and a brief relaxation exercise is not a treatment for every cause of anxiety.
Common questions
Talk it through with Adel
If anxiety keeps arriving before reason can catch up, we can talk about how the pattern shows up for you. Sessions are available in Rugby and online.
The first step is a free 30-minute Zoom call. Bring your questions and we’ll see whether working together feels right.
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