Brain-Body Resilience
A podcast dedicated to stressing less and living more. Equal parts personal development and story telling and a bit of brain science to back it up. New episodes drop every Monday! We're all busy so I keep it breif, just a little nugget to take into your day.
Brain-Body Resilience
BBR #190: How do stress and anxiety serve your basic needs?
In this episode I'm talking about how stress and anxiety serve us. It may feel like these emotions are out of your control, simply burdens to bear, but over time, I’ve come to understand that these feelings are actually signaling unmet needs.
We'll explore how our behaviors—like worry, anxiety, and hypervigilance—are often attempts to meet these needs, drawing on the theories of Abraham Maslow and William Glasser's basic needs (survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun)
By reframing our understanding of stress and anxiety, we can learn to manage them more effectively, This episode breaks down how unmet needs drive our behaviors and emotional responses, offering practical insights to shift our perspectives and build resilience.
Understanding this can help us shift our perspective and develop skills to better manage these emotions. We’ll discuss how unmet needs can trigger stress responses and how recognizing these patterns can lead to healthier coping strategies.
We discuss how this cycle can become a part of our identity, acting as a barrier to joy and pleasure. By identifying which of our basic needs are going unmet, we can break free from this cycle and transform our relationship with stress and anxiety.
By the end of this episode, you’ll have a new perspective on your stress and anxiety and tools to address them more effectively.
Resources:
Manage Your Stress Mentorship
Discovery call
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what is up? Hello there, my name is jessica patching bunch, you can call me jpb, and this is brain body resilience. This is a podcast dedicated to growth, human development and stressing a little bit less so you can go ahead and live a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Hello my friends and welcome back to the Brain Body Resilience Podcast. I'm your host, jpb. This is episode number 190.
Speaker 2:I have had this topic in mind for a really long time now and didn't have a complete sense of what I wanted to say around it until now, or kind of how to say it. So today we're talking about how your stress and anxiety serve you, what these things do for you, and the first time that I heard or read or whichever, that the stress and anxiety you have sticks around because it serves you in some way, making it hard to put down this idea I did not love. Immediately I was offended and defensive Like this isn't something I choose, this is just something that happens and I can't do anything about it. I can't control it. Basically, I'm the one suffering here.
Speaker 2:And how dare you suggest that I have a part in it? And that was some years ago now and I don't know how long I have been sitting on this episode, but it's been a while because I came to understand that the idea that we hold on to some of the stress and anxiety because it serves us, this is true, but I wasn't sure how to make it make sense, to be able to articulate my thoughts around this, and so now I have a few words for my thoughts, and so let's get into it. Everything we do is an attempt to get our needs met Worry, anxiety, control, shame, perfection, independence, hypervigilant, cleaning, noticing change in the smallest behaviors or tone of change or expression in others around you.
Speaker 2:These are all signs of chronically stressed nervous system. And so how are your behaviors serving you? How are these things meeting your needs? And I think it's really easy to immediately say, like they're not, it feels terrible, it is bad for me or it's not, it's not doing something good for me, good for me. And the thing is, everything we do is for the purpose of meeting a need.
Speaker 2:And I know a lot of us are familiar or have at least heard of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, suggesting that one need has to be met for another to be considered. We can't move on to one until we have acquired the first or met the first need. And that is true when it comes to survival. When we are concerned with survival, everything else is put aside. And there is a similar theory from William Glasser, who suggests that there are five basic needs survival, belonging, power, freedom and fun and without any specific order attached to them. And that's kind of the major difference. And I have some feelings around the word power. So I want to be really clear that power does not mean the same as power over. That is a different thing, and I think that a lot of the times we hear the word power and think power over, because that is so ingrained in our society and that is the idea of having power means you have power over yourself, power over someone else, power over a situation, and that's a whole different, that's a whole different episode. So, moving forward, when you think about times that your needs are not being met, when you're hungry or tired, you might be irritable or if you're feeling trapped in a situation, you might lash out. If you're feeling lonely, you might withdraw or act out in some kind of way to invite attention. And so, understanding these five needs and how, if they're not met, that will affect how we act. This gives us the opportunity to shift our perspective on why stress and anxiety are sticking around sometimes and how we can build skills to address those things.
Speaker 2:So the five basic needs survival being physical needs for food, water, shelter, sleep, safety, security, and that's what we talk a lot about here. That's what I talk a lot about, because when we are in a chronically stressed state, in a chronic mode of survival, we can't really access these other needs. We can't fulfill these other needs, these other other. We can't fulfill these other needs. We can't access the part of our brain, part of our, our self, that can help us acquire these other things, to help us meet these other needs, because all we are concerned with is that survival piece.
Speaker 2:There's also the need for belonging, relationships and friendships and feeling accepted, cared for and loved by others. As a tribal species, to be accepted by our peers is very important and also adds to that survival piece, because if we are not accepted by our peers, if we're cast out, evolutionarily speaking, we are less likely to survive without our community. Even still, community and connection are essential for our health and well-being. We have the need for power and again, instead of power over this, one is talking about feeling capable, worthy, having pride in accomplishments, having the power to direct ourselves, to be self-directing, self-sufficient, the need for freedom, which is the need for independence and the ability to make choices, to create and explore, and the need for fun, laughter, pleasure, enjoyment, humor, and I think this is when we tend to set that one aside a lot and really just kind of maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't it's definitely the one that gets cut out the most. So when one of these needs is threatened, there is a response and a behavior that follows.
Speaker 2:Fear is a really common response. It is the anticipation of future pain. The basic function of fear is purely survival and the effect of fear is actually only just a few seconds long. But the emotion of fear is the stimulation of that effect, over and over with our thoughts. That create a feedback cycle of stress, creating more fear, more anxiety, largely around one of our basic needs not being met. Often we don't notice the fear or anxiety because it feels familiar, that is what we have adapted to, until we slow down and then sit in silence without distraction and feel that tightness, feel the tension and discomfort, which is why we avoid slowing down and sitting with ourselves, because it is unfamiliar, which feels more threatening than the constant state of arousal, the stress, the anxiety, the overwhelm. Arousal, the stress, the anxiety, the overwhelm.
Speaker 2:The mind can get stuck in these rigid patterns because it's always referencing the past. It can't actually predict the future like we think we can, as hard as we try. So it uses past experiences to find associations, to try to make sense and prepare for this new situation. So we begin to look at all of the threats, all of the dangers. Your brain has this negativity bias, which means that it is more apt to pay attention to the scary, threatening, embarrassing things over the happy, joyful experiences, because the threatening experiences we've had can inform our actions now to help us avoid this same pain or something similar happening. So if we're not intentional with our search for the pretty little things, the gratitude, the things we enjoy in our days with our loved ones, prioritizing joy, which is usually the first thing again to go out the window, because there's always something else that we think is more important something to get done, something to produce, to work towards or just avoid Bad discomfort is something new.
Speaker 2:If we are not actively practicing the joy pieces, our mind can very easily get stuck in the negative. The joy pieces our mind can very easily get stuck in the negative, the fear, the worry, the anxiety, all about the potential of bad things that can happen. And the thing is, joy is one of the most important things that we can reserve time for. Life is more than just surviving, and when it's not, because we are not including the fun, the joy meeting that need, we are left feeling just like that, like we are just surviving, that we are just trying to survive. We're depressed, overwhelmed, run down, like we have got nothing to give and no reason to care about it.
Speaker 2:Joy changes the neurochemical communication in production. It lowers stress, increases energy and mood and gives your brain more information about what is important, what to look out for, what to recognize in the world around you and experiences to make note of. What we give our attention to is what we are telling our brain is important. This is important information. We're going to look for more of that and so when we are intentional about finding that joy, about recognizing the gratitude, all of those little things, we are telling our brain that this is relevant information. This is important. Look out for more of this. We have stress every day and we need a little bit of joy each day to help buffer that and maintain our cognitive and emotional well being.
Speaker 2:Joy is also an act of rebellion when there is a just tragedy all around us and we are so focused on surviving. Joy is allowing yourself to live a little bit in that and yes, if it's something you don't practice, it can feel a little bit uncomfortable. Like all the other things we practice, the actually doing it is the key. I find myself spending so much of my precious energy and time just planning out all of the worst cases when my mind wanders and this is where it goes just to like what is what horrible thing can happen, what is the worst case scenario and how do I prepare for that? And I recognize that this is anticipatory anxiety, which is the fear or worry about a future event, so basically worrying about shit that literally doesn't exist, in an attempt to control the future, which we cannot. This can be as simple as a moment of nervousness or down to debilitating sense of dread, and this anticipatory anxiety can be over something like a presentation at work or school or date, or going out on social situations or any other thing that you can just imagine up to get worked up about, with no way to do anything about it at all except make yourself sick with worry. But the attempt to avoid the pain of not having a need met is what can spur this defense.
Speaker 2:So a little little ditty here about my own life. I just we just bought a new car at the beginning of the year and I've never had a brand new car before. It's very pretty and now that we have had it for several months and taken it camping and you know, life-ing with us, there are some noticeable signs of use and I don't know that they're really actually noticeable to anyone but me, because I'm down in every nook and cranny inspecting for signs of wear and tear. My husband keeps reminding me that we bought an SUV to take it camping and haul things around, and I know that, but I don't want anything to happen to it. I want to protect against all the scratches and scuffs that just come with use. We found a small little scratch on the exterior and I was talking about getting scratch repair. He was like why exterior? And I was talking about getting scratch repair. He was like why these scratches are so tiny? It's just part of using the car. I'm like, yes, obviously, but really thinking we should, you know, immediately take care of these and prevent it for any other signs of use. I was like, yeah, just thinking about future scratches that might be bigger and how we can take care of that.
Speaker 2:So basically, just worrying about things that don't exist, and because I'm aware and have the tools and skills to recognize, I am able to reframe and redirect when it is something that produces more stress and worry than this particular car situation. But this is just an example of how that anticipatory anxiety can show up in the smallest things and when it does and when you can recognize it. This is a great bit of information for you to tell you that your system is in a stressed state. Even if you're not feeling it in that moment, the worry tells you that one of your needs is not being met. And this is where those rigid patterns can come in when we don't recognize the rumination or constant worrying about what ifs, the shit that literally doesn't exist, that we get worked up over. These turn into a strong sense of anxiety in our body. When we can feel it, the discomfort rising. For me, it's in my stomach and chest.
Speaker 2:I can feel that fear and then we think something is wrong because there is this sensation and that must mean that there is actually something wrong either with our health or with the situation that we're projecting fear into, when really it's just our thoughts perpetuating and strengthening that fear cycle, where our physiology responds to the thoughts and drives more fear and more thinking and more chemical response. And you see how that keeps going. So your mind is trying to protect you, and it is. It associates with previous experiences and produces endless stories about what bad thing might happen, and that's just not. That's not just for life or death, survival situations, but survival of self-concept, survival of social acceptance. These things can also be threatened and our brain is risk adverse. It will do whatever it can to avoid the risk of potential pain or loss or discomfort or actual danger.
Speaker 2:We are in constant pursuit of meeting our needs and again, survival, belonging power, freedom, fun. And when one or more of these needs are not being met, there will be stress, there will be anxiety, there will be worry and fear. So, recognizing that these things are not in fact a sign to confirm every, you know, worst possible thing we're thinking, but information about what our needs are, an indication that one or more of those basic needs are not being met to protect us, to attempt to meet our needs, likely the power, survival, belonging, freedom aspects. And then, when we are focused on those things, we forget the need for fun, joy, pleasure, and that need is left unmet. And that is the case for the majority of us, I believe, and that is the case for the majority of us, I believe.
Speaker 2:So not only are the stress and anxiety tools to help protect us and try to meet these needs, but they become familiar, they become a part of our identity and if they've been around for a long time, they can become a crutch, giving us excuses to not try something new, not change how we're doing things, not look into how we might be contributing to our own suffering, because we are constantly in a loop of stress and worry about our needs not being met and then left without the resources or capacity to address which needs aren't met and make those changes. And so this is how our stress and anxiety can be serving us. It can be hard to let go of these things when they have become part of our identity and part of how we cope with things and part of how we try to have these needs met, and the fear and the worry that comes with that serves a purpose. It is trying to avoid the pain, the loss, the discomfort which happens when these needs are not met, and so my challenge to you is to look at these basic needs and ask yourself which ones feel like they're missing. As always, awareness comes first, and for anything to change, action must follow.
Speaker 2:That's all I've got today. Thank you for being here. You know that I don't take your time or attention for granted. I'm so grateful that you choose to spend this time here. If you did find this episode useful, please do share it with a friend, so they might also find some use in it. We'll do this again soon. Until then, I hope you have a beautiful week, peace.