Mindfulness: An Empowering Tool to Heal Your Anxiety
First of All, What is Anxiety?
Anxiety can be understood as the experience of your body and mind in a heightened state of alert, even when, in the moment, there is no immediate, real danger present. The sympathetic nervous system, our "fight or flight" system, can get activated, leading to physiological (body) changes like increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and muscle tension. Anxiety is the feeling of unease, worry, or fear that accompanies this body "danger alarm" trigger. The foundation for anxiety often starts at an early age, in childhood, where we experienced stressful or overwhelming events, and our nervous system adapted and began to overprotect or overreact, This vigilance can present as overthinking, chronic worry, controlling behaviors, staying busy, perfectionism or expecting the worst case scenario. Overtime, with practice and reinforcement, this overreaction to non-life threatening situations, can become habitual.
It is common that the nervous system can get STUCK in overdrive and hypervigilance. Anxiety is a symptom of being stuck in threat physiology.
In our fast-paced modern world that is full of artificial lighting, limited daylight exposure and blue light from devices, maintaining healthy sleep can be challenging. It's easy to lose touch with the natural rhythms that govern our bodies. Consider how we've evolved as a species, it was not that long ago that as the sun went down, humans would cook by the light of fire and read in candlelight. This shift from daylight to low amber light signaled the brain to produce melatonin and to get ready for sleep. Today, it's common in our homes that we have bright overhead lights, blue lights from televisions and phone screens (often displaying stimulating or stress-inducing content) that disrupt our evening wind down routine and impact our readiness for sleep. 
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