Chronic low-grade anxiety.
That feeling that you can’t settle. You can’t eat. You can’t relax. Your muscles are tense.
Not all is right with the world. Many people who live with chronic low-grade anxiety don’t even realize it’s there.
I see this all the time in my patients who experience panic attacks (when a couple of straws “break the camel’s back” so to speak, the “backs” being a nervous system that is already tightly wound up), or dissociation, even depression, or chronic exhaustion.
Chronic low-grade anxiety can occur if something happens to us that our nervous systems don’t yet understand. I was babysitting a dog for a few days and she and my dog got into a fight. It was nasty and it rattled my nervous system.
I found myself feeling wound up… needing to be soothed, to be settled, for someone to tell me that it wasn’t going to happen again. My response is to go into “information” mode, to poll people, to get an authority’s perspective.
But, of course, it’s impossible to have certainty in this world. And so, my nervous system was asking for something: either that the situation wouldn’t happen again, or that I would know how to handle it and make things alright if it did.
Those with a history of childhood trauma may live in a state of hypervigilence and chronic anxiety–for you it might be your default state, like oxygen, anxiety is always there, at the very baseline of your experience.
The experience of low-grade anxiety is terrible. You’re always vigilant. You’re obsessing, you can’t relax. Your startle reflex is completely uptight.
You have nightmares, you don’t feel hungry. And yet you suddenly feel light-headed and starving.
Everything feels like too much.
Symptoms of chronic low-grade anxiety:
- brain fog
- overwhelm
- disrupted sleep
- feeling jittery or shaky
- nausea
- lack of hunger
- extreme hunger
- tense, sore muscles
- digestive issues, IBS, bloating, diarrhea
- generalized sense of dread
- shortness of breath, or difficulty getting a full breath
- sweating
- fatigue
- and so on
How do you heal it? Well, it’s tough because ultimately the nervous system wants you to REASSURE it that the world is a SAFE PLACE.
And… it’s not.
Shit happens.
It’s a bumper sticker for a reason.
Shit happens and when it does we need resources.
These resources come in the form of physical nutrition: literally salt, glucose and water. They come from stable hormones (related to blood sugar, a properly functioning circadian rhythm), managed inflammation.
They come from restorative practices: exercise and rest, time where you feel into your body. And they come from understanding the situation: storying it.
In the case of the dogfight, it helped me to learn about dogs, to know how to keep them calm and happy, to understand their particular language and establish myself as the dog leader (also lots and lots of exercise and a bit of CBD oil).
Once they were calm I was calm too.
In the case of childhood trauma it might involve working with the story through the support of a trusted therapeutic relationship, and maybe after working on building resources and engaging in stabilizing practices that help you feel embodied.
Therapies to treat chronic low-grade anxiety:
- nutritional practices focused on obtaining essential nutrients like fat and protein and stabilizing blood sugar
- support circadian rhythms, sleep and cortisol responses in the body
- support neurotransmitters and cell membranes
- trauma-informed therapy, or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
- movement
- meditation and self-compassion
- breathwork
- emotional regulation, self-soothing and other embodiment practices
- time in nature
- plenty of rest
- regular routines and self-care-informed habits
- plant medicines that can help access deeper seated trauma or regulate the nervous system, hormonal systems and brain chemistry.
- And so on.
Our nervous systems are beautiful things. They’re trying to tell us something.
A nervous system on edge is telling us that all is not harmonious with the world: perhaps our internal world, or our external one.
Can we listen to it?
Learn more about supporting your mood and mental health with nutrition.
