does trying to relax or meditate make you anxious like isn't it supposed to make you feel calm
so I recently got this email asking about this common problem the person
said hi I've just been trying out your relaxation techniques on the grounding
course which I'm finding extremely useful but during progressive muscle relaxation
I started crying and my immediate reaction is to stop relaxing so that I stop crying
do you have any suggestions about how to best tackle this okay so this got me thinking so I
so I ran a poll on my channel and 61 of people said that trying to relax or meditate made them
feel anxious guilty or panicky so like what the heck is going on here in this video we're going
to troubleshoot what it might be making you feel anxious when you try to relax and full disclosure
as soon as I started addressing this topic I was like oh my gosh like I need this video
thank you [Music]
okay so this video is sponsored by betterhelp betterhelp makes it really easy to access therapy
from a licensed professionals from the comfort of your own home you can learn to work through
depression or anxiety with their help so if you'd like to learn more you could use my link in the
description for 10 off your first month okay so relaxation induced anxiety happens for around 15
of the population but it's much more common for people with depression or anxiety the exercises
that are supposed to make you feel better like meditation mindfulness and self-care like actually
make you feel worse so what's going on right I can think of a handful of reasons why this might
be the case and the first reason is trauma so in response to trauma like emotional abuse right our
nervous system activates the fight flight freeze response stress hormones flood our body and our
muscles tense we're braced for Action to defend ourselves or to like run away but if we're safe
like right now if if we're just listening to a progressive muscle relaxation exercise why
would we still be having a trauma response now sometimes when we have chronic unresolved trauma
old trauma responses get stored as a habitual tension in our bodies right and essentially this
is a defense mechanism it protects us from harm it's like keeping our guard up all the time and
with all of these defense mechanisms relaxing can actually open us up to feeling very vulnerable and
exposed it like feels unsafe to let down our walls so if we look at the three states of the nervous
system from a polyvacular theory the safety state is also about connection and that can feel really
vulnerable it's the the next state the activated state is where people often dwell they just get
stuck in this chronic hyper vigilance this on guard State and that makes relaxing feel
exposed and vulnerable especially if you grew up in a home where connecting with people wasn't
emotionally safe you're basically protecting yourself against external threats and this
is closely connected to the next reason where you're guarding against internal threats so reason
number two is it's possible that you're a highly sensitive person and you basically needed to carry
anxiety and worry as a protective shield against big emotions that may come up like disappointment
or regret or hurt because you feel every emotion so intensely you subconsciously carry worry around
as a protective armor it's like you'll hear this a lot you'll hear people say this I'd rather
expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised than expect the best and be disappointed this
is called the contrast avoidance model because you fear a sharp spike in uncomfortable emotions
you prefer to worry and maintain a low level of negative mood rather than being happy and relaxed
and risk feeling really sad because worry serves to protect you from feeling trying to relax and
let go of this worry is really vulnerable You're being asked to take off your armor and that can
feel really scary or uncomfortable it also can allow feelings that you've been suppressing to
surface right contrast avoidance which is avoiding letting yourself feel like big positive emotions
and big negative emotions is really closely related to major depressive disorder and
generalized anxiety disorder so okay so if that's the case what do you do like obviously of course
I recommend working with an individual provider and asking your therapist what they think but One
Way Forward may be to just create some time and space to work through these Affiliates to just
get really curious about these feelings you have when you try to relax and just take time to allow
yourself to get shaky and cry you can also like Journal about it and explore and see what comes
right these feelings that you've been suppressing or these feelings you've been avoiding might have
a message for you and if you listen to them they might resolve but at the very least you can like
create space for them instead of avoiding them I'm going to talk about some more solutions as we as
we go but that's kind of the main approach is like if you've been suppressing emotions you've got to
let yourself feel them if you want to re-develop your range of emotions and if you want to learn
more about this I do have a video um titled why anxiety and depression are linked and it talks
about how we avoid those big feelings and that leaves us feeling pretty miserable okay reason
number three relaxing makes you feel guilty and never good enough my grandma literally had a book
titled I feel guilty when I relax but it's true she did and so did my mom and so did I right I
think this can be caused by a couple of things one is that our Western Society really emphasizes and
highlights and Praises these goal driven highly individualistic overachievers and says like this
is the ideal person right this sends the message that taking time to relax is lazy and selfish
but when we grow up in this culture we grow up completely immersed in our culture these beliefs
are often subconscious so we don't even realize why we feel anxious or guilty when we relax
and then also if you grow up in a home where there's these Unwritten rules that you're
supposed to constantly assume what everyone around you needs and you're supposed to constantly like
walk on eggshells and bend yourself into a pretzel to accommodate others like sitting
down and relaxing can feel like you're sinning right and underneath all of that people-pleasing
is the belief that you're never good enough so you keep trying to be like good enough and then
you feel like you should just constantly be doing something and if you aren't constantly
doing something that you're a bad person and then that leads you know feeling like you're
never good enough can lead to the pipeline freeze response because you fear that you're going to be
rejected from your family or your tribe or by God for not working all the time you feel unsafe and
you try to create a sense of safety by just running about and keeping busy all the time
so how's that working for you right running around doesn't make you feel safe it makes you
think that you need to keep running to feel safe and that can be kind of addictive right so this
is really closely related to a scarcity mindset where you believe that there's never enough time
there's never enough money there's never enough opportunities the house is never clean enough
you've never worked hard enough as a parent the scarcity mindset might fuel like this constant
surge of stress chemicals and the fear that if you relax like something bad might happen so if
this is the case what do you do about it my first just clarify like what are you actually afraid of
and write that down right is it true challenge it right is it true that you have to be busy all
the time is it helpful is it making the home that you want to live in like clarify what you really
do want and then visualize what would it feel like if you accepted yourself as you are like
right about that um Kristen Neff also has some great exercises on this and one thing sometimes
I do is just imagine God's grace and love flowing over me and and covering up any of my inadequacies
in addition to these visualization exercises you can also use your behaviors to retrain your mind
so if you do the opposite of what you have been doing if you intentionally stop rushing about
you intentionally go slowly and methodically and you're still safe like you're still good enough
no one rejects you right your mind can rewire to learn that you can be safe without running
about being busy all the time okay I've got a few more Reasons I'm gonna throw out here number four
is you're meditating wrong right some people think that the gold meditation or relaxation
is to force your mind to go blank or to force your body to relax and both of these approaches
can backfire so instead learn to practice the principle of non-striving and observing get
better at watching your thoughts and feelings and be curious about them instead of trying to like
force them to change now mindfulness is a skill it's an exercise it's not a quick fix you could
watch a couple of my videos on on willingness to learn more about making space for your feelings
okay reason number five that relaxation might make you feel anxious is being busy is comfortable for
you your nervous system prefers a familiar hell to an unfamiliar heaven so when you're accustomed to
feeling anxious and busy and activated all the time you may literally feel so uncomfortable
if you're in the parasympathetic state of your nervous system right sometimes we just get so used
to being tense or anxious or tight that relaxing feels foreign to us so the way to reverse this
is to just practice more right creating space for that unfamiliar feeling of relaxation be
willing to feel uncomfortable while you practice this and then eventually it's going to get more
and more comfortable for you to be relaxed okay I'm just going to touch on two other reasons why
relaxing might make you anxious so number six is you've been avoiding dealing with a problem
you've been constantly distracting yourself from solving a problem at home or work like let's say
you've got credit card debt and every time you sit down to meditate you start worrying about
it it might be a sign that you need to instead of sitting down to meditate you need to sit down and
look at your bank account make a budget and cut up your credit cards it may be a sign that you
need to just take some action on some problem and reason number seven is executive function right
some people's brains especially those with ADHD have a much harder time than the average person
directing their attention to slow activities like relaxation or mindfulness and this can improve
with practice or meditation or just accepting your own neurodiversity okay so there's seven reasons
why relaxing might make you anxious and what to do about it right trauma and Hyper vigilance so
make space for those feelings and working through them uh number two you carry worry like armor
so get better at feeling practice willingness um number three you subconsciously believe that your
worth depends on your busyness and in that case clarify your values and practice self-compassion
um the number four is you're meditating wrong so learn to observe instead of trying to force
it number five it's a habit you're just not used to feeling relaxed you can practice that
skill number six you're avoiding something that should be solved instead number seven executive
function you can practice and you can consider um treating or accepting your neurodiversity so
I hope this helps you get better at feeling this is a really common problem that a lot
of people have myself included and you know I hope we can all just keep practicing and show
ourselves some great in the process okay hope this is helpful thank you for watching and take care
[Music]