Anxiety: A Monster Fed By Our Adrenaline

Anxiety is a monster that is fed by our adrenaline. Adrenaline is a substance that our bodies release when it feels that there is some kind of danger in the environment. The drug wants to prepare us for protecting ourselves. It can be provoked by the sight of a lion or a snake. Something that is a little unlikely in the world that we inhabit today and therefore does not seem very adaptive to us. However, adrenaline is also released when we suddenly slide down the stairs. Or when oil in the frying pan pops up on us while we make dinner.

Our adrenaline sets us in motion

At this moment, our adrenaline is released and helps us hold on to the railing. Or walk away from the heat on which we fry an egg. That is , our adrenaline sets us in motion. It helps us act in time before deadly consequences occur.

But in the same case, when our adrenaline is released , the monster is awakened by anxiety from its sleep. In principle, it is also part of the protective instinct, which is why it helps us grab the railing and manage to keep our balance before we fall down the stairs.

But despite the fact that slipping on the stairs is a daily situation, the anxiety monster can reveal itself and never succeed in going to bed again. Then it remains in us. Feeds on adrenaline that we have released. While we feel our heart continue to beat and our fears remain in our body.

As this monster continues to have adrenaline to feed on, we will feel it inside us. But when we are no longer in the dangerous situation, the monster will know that its adrenaline reserves are running out, going to sleep from the lack of food.

Our fight against the anxiety monster

It happens sometimes that the anxiety monster makes us so scared that we fight for it to leave our body, we shout that we do not want it, that we do not accept it, and that it should not be inside us.

This psychological battle causes our body to put another intoxication of adrenaline aside, this time there is just no real danger that justifies it; Instead, there is a monster that is happy that we continue to feed it more and more.

So thanks to the excess of adrenaline, the monster of anxiety becomes huge and hugely aggressive. Threatening, it shouts that it will paralyze our hearts, that it will make our throats dry, or that it will consume our brains.

It can not do this, but it tells us it louder and louder because it knows that in this way we will hear it better and it will manage to get more emotional food, more adrenaline. Then it fills our daily lives with an insatiable hunger that knows we have to take care of it.

The monster is in our control

Now, if we do not listen to it and accept its cries as usual, we will stop being aware of it and it will not get adrenaline from our bodies, so the anxiety monster will finally have no choice but to return to the comfortable sleep.

The anxiety monster can only scare our body. As we can see, it represents our body’s natural reaction when faced with something that our body or mind understands as an immediate danger.

It is a simple and normal mechanism that we can all understand. With whatever this monster is already huge or has the potential to get out of control, we must remember that it is in our control to make it smaller and more irrelevant. We can do this by accepting that its presence will depend on us opening up or limiting ourselves to experiencing the natural sensations.

Bibliographic Source of Interest: Understanding and Managing Your Anxiety (Entiende y maneja tu ansiedad) by José Antonio García Noguera and Javier García Ureña