A Holistic view of anxiety

When you are faced with a stressful event, your body responds by secreting stress hormones like adrenaline + cortisol. But here is something many people miss:

Stress also influences muscles + causes tension in preparation for actions of protection such as fight, flight, or freeze.

During this time, fascia is influenced as well. Your God designed fascia is a thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every organ, blood vessel, bone, nerve fiber and muscle in place. Fascia not only provides internal structure; nerves in the fascia make it almost as sensitive as skin. When you are emotionally or physically stressed, it tightens up.

This is helpful during an actual event, but one thing to consider is when you face emotional stressors (hearing bad news, receiving a text that triggered you, etc), the physiological response is the same. Overlooking this truth can lead to chronic patterns of tension in your body. This is why ignoring your physical body when dealing with emotional stress, can fuel chronic symptoms of anxiety. Here is an example:

Why does this matter? Well, if you think about worsening anxiety and what postures can influence this, kyphosis is one of them, due to the constriction of fascia in the upper deep front line of the body, which constricts the diaphragm and surrounding nerves.

If your diaphragm is constantly constricted, it impacts your capacity to breathe deeply.

If your capacity to breathe deeply + exhale is impaired, your oxygen intake may become impaired and CO2 may build up in your blood stream. When this happens, your body responds by hyperventilating to lower CO2 to save you, this can feel scary leading and often lead to feelings of doom + worsening anxiety.

If this posture becomes habitual, and you have another every day emotional trigger arise...

And your body responds with more stress hormones and further muscle tension, it becomes hard to breathe. It literally feels like your survival is at stake. Which can trigger a sense of panic, shortness of breath, + even heart palpitations.

When we fail to take the entire God designed body into consideration, and treat it holistically, we miss out on this dynamic + often get stuck in cycles, as we silence the bodies message.

We then over pathologize and rush to medicate and fail to listen to the message of the entire body. That is not to say medication is not needed, sometimes it is life saving.

However, a full picture and care for God designed body means honoring both the structure (the body), and the hormones + emotions at play and getting curious. What does this look like?

It looks like developing small daily practices that help our body reduce chronic tension and create space for incoming emotional stressors.

It looks like becoming aware of our emotional triggers + taking measures to properly respond when they arise without being taken captive. Or looking at what may need to change in our environment + daily habits.

And it looks like honoring our Spirit by staying rooted in the word of God to receive ongoing help for being human, because spiritual health is the foundation of our lived experiences and we are not just a physical mind or body, we have a consciousness (soul).

Want to learn more?

Join us inside Aligned + Renewed where you will be equipped with the knowledge + actions you need to take to care for your body as a whole, while staying rooted in a Biblical lens.

I walk you through exercises to complete to reduce chronic tension in your body, and give you practical tools for navigating tough emotions as they arise. You’ll be connected with other Christian women on a similar path.

Hope to see you inside!