Understanding Anxiety: Signs, Causes, and How Therapy Can Help

Anxiety is a natural and adaptive response that helps us react to danger. But when it becomes ongoing or overwhelming, it can affect both our mental wellbeing and physical health. One of the most important aspects of understanding anxiety is recognising the powerful connection between mind and body — a link that is driven in part by our autonomic nervous system.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety involves a range of physical and emotional responses designed to protect us from perceived threats.

When the brain senses danger — real or imagined — it activates the fight-or-flight response, which may include symptoms like a racing heart, shallow breathing, muscle tension, sweating, and changes in digestion.

These are often the more obvious signs of anxiety. However, anxiety can also present with less recognised somatic symptoms — physical symptoms that don’t always seem directly related to stress or emotion. These may include:

• Headaches or jaw tension

• Upset stomach, bloating, or irritable bowel symptoms

• Dizziness or light-headedness

• Tingling in the hands or feet

• Chest tightness

• Fatigue or difficulty sleeping

These symptoms occur because anxiety affects multiple systems in the body — not just how we think or feel, but how we physically function.

The Autonomic Nervous System: The Engine Behind Anxiety

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls many of our automatic bodily functions, such as heart rate, breathing, digestion, and sweating. It has two key branches:

• The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) activates the body’s fight-or-flight response, preparing us for perceived threats. It increases heart rate, tenses muscles, and diverts energy away from long-term processes like digestion.

• The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) helps restore calm after the threat has passed. It slows the heart rate, supports digestion, and encourages rest and recovery.

In people experiencing chronic anxiety, the sympathetic system can become overactive, and the body may struggle to return to a relaxed state — leaving the nervous system in a near-constant state of tension.

How Therapy Can Help Regulate the Nervous System

Therapy can play a key role in helping the nervous system shift out of a constant state of high alert. This may involve approaches including;

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) — to explore and gently challenge unhelpful thinking patterns that can keep the body in a cycle of perceived threat and tension. CBT helps build new, more balanced ways of thinking that support a calmer internal state.

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) — to help clients to respond more flexibly to anxious thoughts and feelings, rather than becoming caught in struggle or avoidance. ACT supports values-based action and incorporates mindfulness techniques to reduce the grip of anxiety.

• Schema Therapy — to address deeper, longstanding patterns that can underlie chronic anxiety. For example, individuals with schemas related to vulnerability, failure, or excessive self-sacrifice may experience anxiety in response to certain triggers. Schema therapy combines cognitive, experiential, and behavioural techniques to create lasting change.

• Mindfulness-Based Strategies — to increase awareness of the present moment, reduce reactivity, and support the body in activating the parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) system. This can include mindfulness meditation, body scans, or mindful movement.

• Somatic and body-based techniques — such as slow, diaphragmatic breathing, grounding exercises, or progressive muscle relaxation, which directly engage the nervous system and support physical calm.

  
  

These approaches can help individuals become more aware of their early anxiety cues, respond more effectively, and gradually restore a sense of internal safety and control. Over time, therapy helps reduce both the intensity and frequency of anxiety symptoms — supporting lasting wellbeing.