The Word in Latin simply means uneasy or troubled.
Anxiety disorders come in several different classifications, 1000’s of pages of research is available on these however I have come to realise that it is not that complex.
When you take a look at how worry and anxiety work, they follow a fairly consistent pattern.
I like to start by recognising that anxiety is normal. That is, worry and fear play a healthy, often useful role in our bodies and brains. It is a protective mechanism that we humans share with all other mammals!
Anxiety is our physiological response to threat or alarm; it is a very sophisticated mechanism. When the brain receives word there is a crisis at hand it flips on the emergency switch (the almond shaped amygdala gland in our brain).
The brain then communicates to the endocrine system, the autonomic nervous system and the motor nerves of the skeletal muscles and they all respond together to get the body ready to Fight/Flight or Freeze. Essentially this is in order to ‘self-preserve’ in the face of danger.
When this happens, we may notice any or all of the myriad of physical symptoms in our body such as:
- Heart pumping faster
- Perspiration
- Tense muscles
- Reduced blood flow in hands & feet causing numbing or pins and needles to keep the heart pumping faster
- Stomach-ache
- Diarrhoea
- Nausea
- Headache
- Shaking
- Dry Mouth
These can be some pretty intense sensations. If you don’t understand the way anxiety works or you haven’t felt it before then you may think it’s wrong, even dangerous to feel this way.
If you believe the challenge is too big and you can’t handle it then you become even more anxious which exaggerates the fight, flight, freeze response. This can all happen unconsciously especially for children and all they know is that they feel awful and they want it to stop.
Imagine being a child experiencing this for the first time, it can be pretty frightening, and it makes sense that they would want to get rid of the feeling and avoid it happening again.
This is where the behaviours we associate with anxiety can begin as the events outlined above naturally result in the affected person anticipating an event that will make them feel out of control again and want to control it.
In this situation the child feeling anxious has very few options and how we respond to them is where we can either help or hinder them!
So, where is this threat or alarm that I am talking about?
Let’s think about our children’s lives for a minute now because whilst many children across the world do have to face big threats and scary situations there are also many smaller alarming events that all children experience.
Child developmental psychologist Dr Gordon Neufeld tell us “The biggest source of alarm for our children is separation or the threat of separation from those people and things that we are attached to”.
A child’s life then, is full of alarming futilities i.e. facing rejection by a friend, a pet dying, facing separation from parents, exclusion or bullying, teachers shouting, punishments, parents arguing. The list goes on and on.
Whilst these can’t be compared to the threat of war or survival, the brain (remember the Amygdala?) can’t differentiate between the scale of alarming events so it will still be activated by the smaller things.
If a child believes they have to avoid feeling like this and that they can’t handle it, they will adopt behaviours to help them cope. This is when normal worry then becomes problematic and often pops up at the wrong time and place.
Normal momentary hesitations can move into repetitive anxious thoughts.
If children become avoidant, then they don’t get practice at handling their worries.
Avoidance is a typical ‘safety behaviour’ that can develop and there are other behaviours you may notice, including:
- Rigidity
- Withdrawing
- Clinginess
- Anger (towards self & others)
- Sleep troubles
- Hyper controlling
- Concentration/attention issues
- Constantly seeking reassurance/comfort/certainty
- Can lead to depression/OCD/phobias
- Shyness/selective mutism
- Persistent nervousness/tension
- Nervous Tics/spasms
- Nightmares
- Distorted thinking such as catastrophising/all or nothing thinking.
This article doesn’t attempt to explain the mechanisms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but I will share the insight that OCD can develop when alarm becomes displaced as the thought of the attachment disruption (remember separation being a big source of alarm) is too much to bear and they become blind to it.
When we become blinded by the things that are causing us such alarm, we can become orphaned to them and divorced from the real causes, the brain just can’t stand it. Instead of ‘alarm’, the energy goes to ‘caution’.
In this situation the brain displaces alarm to things that can be seen i.e. scared of the dark or alarming obsessions such as re-organising bedrooms, monsters, paranoia, other phobias such as locking doors, I am going to get lost, it’s not safe to fly, something is wrong with me, I might get sick etc
I now think of OCD as ‘alarm’ without eyes.
As we have seen, the ‘what’ as in, the ‘way’, anxiety shows up may be different for each child, but the ‘how’ as in the physiological process, is the same for all.
If your child is struggling with anxiety more than others, you may be wondering why? Eli R. Lebowitz explores this in his book ‘Breaking Free of Child Anxiety & OCD’.
He says there are multiple things that can contribute to a child’s anxiety level, including biological factors as well as external and environmental.
Indeed, it appears that some children are born with the tendency to be more anxious, they can have a highly reactive temperament and be more sensitive, but genetics is a very complex area, and there is no ‘single gene for anxiety’. It is key to avoid labelling anxiety or worry as ‘genetic’ and I recommend avoiding giving your child the message of “you are a worrier; it runs in the family”.
No matter whether there is a family history of anxiety or not we want to give our children the message that they can change and that this is not a disease.However, if you (or both parents) are anxious yourself then this can become the psychological air that your children breathe. I certainly have noticed when I have had anxious periods during my time as a mum it has impacted on the children.
I have absolutely had a dip in the pool of anxiety over the years and getting support was always tantamount to helping restore balance for myself and subsequently, the children.
As a parenting coach I always explore this with parents I work with and help them to find ways that work for them to reduce their anxiety.If anxiety has become a family tradition it is vitally important to look at why? Your own trauma may mean you view the world through the lens of fear and find uncertainty intolerable or you may have become anxious in response to coping with your child’s anxiety.
Whatever is true for you do reach out and get support as it will also be affecting your response to your child’s anxiety which most likely will be more reactive than you like.
NEXT TIME we will look at some simple steps and strategies to help you solve the puzzle of anxiety.
