Anxiety and sadness are natural responses – why do we demonise them?

Anxiety and sadness are natural responses – why do we demonise them?

If anxiety and sadness are natural, why are we so obsessed with being 'laid back'? If fear is a natural instinct, why do we feel guilty when we begin to sweat and palpitate when our name is called out in a meeting, as though we'e failed at being the right sort of human? Why are dating apps are full of people of all ages demanding that potential matches ‘don’t take life too seriously’?

I’ll admit, my anxiety has been out of control in the past, however, over the years I'e learnt that anxiety is an important and normal phenomenon – it’s our brain signalling that we should prepare for the potential of danger. It's an evolutionary feature, it's the reason we're all here.

Anxiety and fear are natural

Anxiety, fear and intuition are all closely linked. Our reptilian brain, our most primal and instinctive driver, takes over and feeds us instructions on whether to fight, run or stand our ground. The panic, disquiet or confusion we feel when we experience anxiety, intuition or fear is an essential part of our decision making process – it’s a survival technique.

We’ve demonised anxiety and celebrated calm for centuries and of course, this makes perfect sense. It’s pleasant to feel calm and unafraid. We conceive of the perfect lifestyle as being peaceful and unmarred by challenges. It’s preferable to feel relaxed, rather than anxious,

However, at some point in the development of our human societies, we decided that not only was it preferable to feel calm, but that feeling anxious was a fault. Experiencing anxiety meant you were broken, not reacting in the proper, rational, human way. Of course, this is nonsense.

As we know, our brains are wired to experience panic and fear in order to survive. If our ancestors had been laid back about potential threats, they simply wouldn’t have made it.

Why are we ashamed of our anxiety?

This begs the question, why do we view an anxious response as some kind of wildcard? Sure, you can go overboard where anxiety is concerned – I can certainly attest to that. But why do we say, ‘oh don’t be nervous, it’s fine’ or ‘why are you feeling anxious?’

As though these sensations aren’t valid or warranted? Isn’t it obvious that bodily fear, excitement and apprehension are totally healthy and normal? It’s strange that we should make others feel ashamed for experiencing them.

Although we do have a habit of making totally natural phenomenon sources of shame. Take for example the fact that 100% of women have cellulite. Cellulite occurs because of the physical way our fat is structured beneath the skin. Attempting to remove it as though it isn’t totally normal is like chopping off your fingers because you read somewhere that 'fingers are weird and not normal'.

Or take sex, for example. Sex is natural, healthy and normal. Almost everyone does it and without it we wouldn’t be here. So why has any association with it become a source of shame?

Humans have a habit of trying to alienate the most commonplace aspects of our basic physical and mental functionality and present them as unnatural. Which, frankly, seems like a lot of effort for absolutely no reward.

Worry is a misuse of creativity

I was diagnosed with GAD which meant my fear and panic levels are off the chart. I’m scared all the time. I catastrophise every situation and use a lot of my mental energy to panic...

Anxiety stopped me from being happy, from living the life I wanted. I thought of it as a polarised evil, with no merit, a bug in my brain. But being hyper aware helped me to develop my intelligence, my emotional and social skills, it helped me to succeed and to create a life for myself that I’d never have thought possible. In moderation, it was a driver, it moved me and motivated me.

My favourite modern philosopher Alain de Botton said, 'as soon as we’re born we’re a potential accident waiting to happen, we’re on the edge of a precipice" and yet, we’re obsessed with a sense of calm and security. I certainly become obsessed with it, believing not that anxiety and sadness are natural, but that they're what stands in between me and a successful and happy life.

Side note – too much cortisol, the stress hormone, is bad for you. It was bad for me. It made me ill, as an overproduction of any chemical in the body might. But just the right amount? That actually helped me on my way to a successful and happy life. So, I set about understanding what it is, how to regulate it.

In 2015 I began to look into the science of why my brain behaves the way it does. I saw therapists, studied ‘mindset’ behaviours, did yoga, started mindfulness, read a stack of self help books, biology tomes and scientific and philosophical treatise and began to realise that, we’re supposed to be a little scared all the time. Full-time worry isn't healthy but a little sadness? That’s good. To err is human.

Anxiety throughout history

We are creatures of habit and care safety. The unknown is frightening to us, it represents danger, predators, violence and excommunication from our communities, which can ultimately, result in our untimely deaths.

Perfection and peace is never promised. Religion encourages us to pursue it but we’re not able to just be happy and peaceful. We have to suffer and to be fearful and worried. And we are, naturally.

The art of happiness and zen. It’s amazing, deep breaths and meditation are good for the body but it’s about balance. Only monks dedicate their lives to silence, peace, chanting, meditation. But really, we aren’t built for this life and most of us, don’t want it. Which is why we don’t all do it...

A little breath work never hurt anyone. But drama, danger, tragedy and melancholy has been celebrated throughout history. Greeks tragic nature of humanity, we are all prone to error and we live in fear of that. All ancient culture depicts the importance of balance and in many cases, celebrates sadness.

Today, we tend to fetishise anxiety as a modern adjunct to our lives. With tech and comfort and industrialised support providing food, shelter and comfort, our anxieties find new homes and seem separate from us.

Anxiety seems not like something that is essential to our existence, but as an irritating bugbear that follows us around, ruining the comfortable lifestyles we'e crafted. It seems unnecessary. But anxiety and sadness are natural responses that our brain cooks up because it's supposed to.

Fixing anxiety and sadness with therapy

Spoiler alert – you can’t ‘fix’ anxiety or sadness or the reactive nature of your brain. Sure, you can balance it, regulate it and learn to control it all but therapy is about equipping you with an understanding of your moods and how to work with them rather than against them.

Therapy, meditation, self care, medication – it’s all about about tooling up to deal with reality. We face pressures from all sides so by all means, tool up, but don’t believe for a second that you can delete or eradicate anxiety and sadness from your body – anxiety and sadness are natural, they're ingrained in the human experience.

We try to tame the wild and organise the unpredictability of the natural world. We create safe spaces and minimise risks. But we’ll always be destroyed by nature. Now or by natural disasters, by accidents by scientific forces of physics, by time.

It's important to embrace anxiety and not see it as the enemy. It’s not a monster, it’s a chemical process, it’s a feeling, it’s a survival instinct. And look, awareness of your own mortality is not a sin. You’re not doing life wrong if you acknowledge fear. It's healthy to be scared.

If your fear stops you from living life then you need to get that checked out. But our general anxiety and sadness are natural, they're not the enemy. 

We’re creatures of mood but we keep chasing a solid state. We’re always changing. The case is never one thing. It will never be horrible or brilliant. Cortisol the stress hormone is essential so our quest for peace is a fallacy.

As a friend of mine says, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.