Anxiety. It’s your body’s natural response to stress. When your brain senses danger, it activates a system called the survival circuit, which gets you ready for action. Your heart starts beating faster. Your chest tightens. And you get short of breath.
“Anxiety is your body’s way of alerting you to feeling unsafe,” says Amber Rules of Rough Patch Counselling.
“Unfortunately, our bodies don’t know the difference between perceived and immediate danger. For example, if you have a general feeling of gnawing anxiety because you think COVID is scary and that lockdown is awful, your body doesn’t know that this isn’t an immediate threat, and it responds accordingly.”