I was recently listening to a podcast interview with Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale University.

Part of the conversation focused on anxiety and how it is on the increase. 

For children between ages 6 to 17, based on data collected from the National Survey of Children’s Health, there was a 20 per cent increase in the diagnosis of anxiety between 2007 and 2012. 

For 18 to 19-year olds, anxiety has also increased. At UCLA, the Higher Education Research Institute asks incoming college freshmen if they “felt overwhelmed” with everything that had to do. In 1985, 18 per cent replied yes. By 2000, it was at 28 per cent. By 2016, it had increased to over 40 per cent.

This increase isn’t something solely being felt by children and young adults. In August 2018, Barnes & Noble, the largest book retailer in the United States, announced a 25 per cent jump in sales on books about anxiety compared to June 2017.

In fact, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. affecting around 40 million adults, which is almost 1 in 5 people.

As you can see from the above figures, anxiety is widespread and getting worse.

What Is Anxiety?

The term anxiety is a catch-all phrase that covers many different types or forms. Some of the most common are:

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 

When you feel anxious and worried most of the time, where it’s not connected to a specific stressful event (like taking an exam or delivering a public presentation). The concerns do relate to certain aspects of your life, whether it be finances, work, health or family; but rather than being transient, the feeling of anxiety is constant. 

Social Anxiety or Social Phobia 

Feeling intense anxiety about being judged, criticised, laughed at or humiliated by being in everyday social situations – like eating in public or making small talk. This can result in symptoms like excessive perspiration, nausea, trembling, or blushing. Which can lead to further anxiety, as you worry that other people will notice what’s happening and the embarrassment or humiliation of thinking something terrible is going to happen as a result. 

Specific Phobias

A particular object, activity or situation leads to fear and worry. While it is common to feel uncomfortable when dealing with a spider or catching a plane, with a phobia it leads to an overwhelming response where you are imagining or exaggerating the danger. 

Panic Disorder

Where you experience overwhelming and intense anxiety combined with physical symptoms like shortness of breath and feeling choked, increased heart rate, excessive perspiration, and dizziness. The feeling is so intense it can feel like you are having a heart attack or dying and therefore leads to overwhelming panic or fear.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Reoccurring anxious thoughts that lead to obsessive or compulsive acts as a way of alleviating or diminishing these thoughts. This can be connected to cleanliness and order, hoarding, counting, or safety and checking. For example, repeatedly checking if the oven has been left on or obsessive house cleaning.   

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) 

After going through a traumatic event (like a serious car accident, assault or abuse, war, or a natural disaster like flooding, a tornado or fire) you develop a set of reactions. These reactions create a feeling of panic and fear where you can feel highly alert for danger or can be reliving the event or you become emotionally flat and numb. 

These brief descriptions of various forms of anxiety aren’t meant to be detailed explanations of each condition but are more to show that the term anxiety can mean many different things, depending on the situation.

Anxiety can also be a response to living in a world that doesn’t understand or appreciate the way that you are wired. Something covered in this conversation about sensory processing sensitivity or Highly Sensitive People (HSP).

Finding Ways To Cope 

As humans, we have an innate ability to seek out pleasure and avoid pain and anxiety clearly fits into the avoiding pain category. If someone can find a way to reduce their symptom, why wouldn’t they? 

For many people, the solution to their anxiety comes in the form of food and exercise.

When you restrict your food, your anxiety is reduced.

When you have rituals or patterns you follow when eating, anxiety is alleviated.

By exercising, you find your anxiety is better.

These often start as small changes.

By skipping breakfast or going longer between meals you notice your anxiety symptoms improve. After a 30-minute gym session or a 45-minute walk, your anxiety is reduced. 

But commonly, these changes start to balloon. And over months and years what is required to manage your anxiety increases.

So much so that other areas of life begin to suffer and you end up with disordered eating or an eating disorder or with exercise compulsion or addiction.

Acknowledging The Benefit Of This Solution

It can be very easy to look at a situation like this and only see the destruction that the eating disorder or over-exercise is creating. Because often there is clear damage and misery that is being experienced because of the current situation. 

But if this is all that is seen, it’s a mistake. Whatever collateral damage is being caused, there is a benefit you get by keeping up this behaviour. In many ways, it is a solution.

I’m a big believer that people keep their “problems” for a reason. No one keeps doing something that only has a downside. Irrespective of how destructive something may appear, there is a good reason you keep doing it and this should be of interest.

Finding An Alternative 

So rather than chastise someone for their behaviour, the goal is to understand what it is doing for them. How does not changing help you? What are the downsides of stopping this behaviour? What needs are being met by your current way of doing things?

By understanding this, we can start to find ways of better supporting the situation.

Maybe you can find an alternative way of meeting this same need that is more constructive and comes with less (or no) downside.

For example, a client realises that if they start to regularly practice breathwork, they can have a similar effect to when they restrict their breakfast. And that when they reinstate breakfast and do breathwork, with time, they feel even better than before.

Maybe you can find a way of meeting another need, so now this first need is no longer so important.

For example, a client is highly anxious about their appearance and feel like without changing it they will always be judged.  

Despite their apprehension, they enrol in Toastmasters, where they have to come and regularly give a speech. Through learning to speak in public and being more comfortable and confident in social situations, they start to see their appearance isn’t important in the way they once thought. 

Maybe you discover that by repeatedly doing the thing you fear, that this fear is unfounded and dissipates.

For example, a client is walking for hours a day. They feel like if they reduce it, the anxiety is going to be overwhelming and they won’t be able to survive it.

Even though they are worried, they agree to make a change and cut their walk amount by 25 per cent. They start off doing this once a week, then twice a week, then every day of the week. Alongside this they’re finding enjoyable ways to fill this new time void  – drawing, meeting up with friends, playing with their dog. 

While it is difficult to start with, they realise that they can survive this situation and their fears change.

They now want to reduce their walking further, and so they go through the same process again. First doing one day, then another and slowly working up.

Progress Is Rarely Linear

The above are examples of the kind of things that I’ve done many times with clients, with it having marked improvements in their anxiety.

But the above is simplified, fitting neatly into the different categories of how change can be achieved. And the reality is that they weren’t so tidy.

They took time for change to occur. It may be on the third, fifth (or tenth) attempt before it felt even marginally bearable. There was obvious worry and ambivalence while taking the action and second-guessing if they really should be doing this. So, it was nowhere near as straightforward as the above may suggest. 

There was also a combination of things occurring at the same time or leading up to the change.

They had me there for support, something very different to doing this on their own.

We did writing exercises and other exploration work leading up to the change, so they best understood themselves and why they wanted to make the change.

We worked on expectations – they went in knowing and expecting it to be challenging but felt supported throughout.

We figured out what other things needed to be in place to make the changes event as good an experience as possible (even when it was far from pleasant). 

And all of this process was repeated again and again. Acknowledging that there is both the anxiety being caused by trying to break the eating disorder and exercise behaviour, as well as the anxiety that predated these behaviours in the first place. And for proper healing to occur both of these need to be dealt with. 

Dealing With Anxiety

Anxiety, in its many forms, is incredibly common (and worryingly on the rise). For many people, the solution that they find for dealing with this anxiety ends up creating its own set of problems.   

If anxiety is at the core of your issues with your food, exercise and body habits, I’d love to help. I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there.

Want to get a FREE online course created specifically for those wanting full recovery? Discover the first 5 steps to take in your eating disorder recovery. This course shows you how to take action and the exact step-by-step process. To get instant access, click the button below.