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Sound familiar?

It might be helpful here to write down five times your fight-and-flight response has kicked into gear for a GOOD reason. And then write down five times it’s reared its head in an unhelpful way. We need to make an effort to distinguish the normal fear reaction from the excessive and unwarranted fear reaction so that our brains are better able to respond appropriately in a future stressful situation.

Just as with catastrophising, you can help push back against this. It’s exhausting to get trapped in such a cycle. You spend hours, days, weeks feeling full of adrenaline – teeth grinding, sweating, humming with nerves – and then you crash and can be overwhelmed with headaches, tired to your very bones, feel shaky and achy as though you have the flu. And, long term, cortisol (the stress hormone) isn’t very good for you – it’s been shown to prompt weight gain, affect blood pressure and mess with cholesterol.ssss1 And the rest. Anxiety really is the gift which keeps on giving.

Some things that help put the brakes on this cycle: