Anxiety: Your Misunderstood Best Friend

Most people think anxiety is the problem. But what if anxiety isn’t your enemy at all — what if it is actually trying to help you?

Key Points:

Most of us have experienced moments where anxiety feels overwhelming.

We might think, “I just want this feeling to stop,” or “If only I could get rid of this anxiety.” But anxiety isn’t actually a mistake in our system. It’s part of how the human brain is designed to protect us.

Salt 106.5 Breakfast Nato speaks with Clinical Psychologist Laura Scherman, about how we can take curious interest in what your body is trying to do for you.

In many ways, your body is your misunderstood best friend. It activates this anxiety response in an effort to keep you safe. But often all we can focus on is how uncomfortable the feeling is, and how much we want it to go away.

Instead of seeing anxiety as an enemy, we can begin to recognise it as a protective system — one that may simply be trying a little too hard to keep you safe. When we start to change our attitude and appreciate what our body is doing for us, the system starts to calm down, and we have much more success using regulation tools to continue to turn the fight-or-flight response down.

Listen to the full conversation in the player above.

For more information and resources from Laura Scherman visit fulllifepsychology.com.au

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