38 - Anxiety Q&A: Meditation Myths, Calming Anxiety At Night, & Why You're Anxious When "Nothing's Wrong"

In Part 3 of the anxiety series, Courtney answers your most submitted questions about anxiety... from physical symptoms and sleep struggles to meditation frustration and why anxiety can show up even when life seems “fine.”

If you’ve ever thought…

• “Why do I feel anxious for no reason?”
• “Why doesn’t meditation work for me?”
• “Why does my anxiety get worse at night?”

This episode is for you.

What We Cover:

1️⃣ Simple Anxiety Tips That Work for All Ages

2️⃣ Physical Symptoms of Anxiety

3️⃣ Why Meditation Might Feel Like It Doesn’t Work

4️⃣ Calming Anxiety at Night

5️⃣ Does Anxiety Get Worse with Age?

6️⃣ Why You Feel Anxious Even When Nothing Is Wrong

Resources mentioned:

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
• The Headspace app

Free Guide For You!

If you wake up anxious, even when there’s no clear reason, Courtney created something specifically for you:

The 10-Minute Calm Morning Reset

Inside you’ll find:

• A 3-minute guided meditation
• A 6-minute guided meditation
• A simple structure to start your day grounded and regulated

Designed to help you begin your day in the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state so anxiety isn’t running the show before your feet hit the floor.

Download it HERE!!

Connect with Courtney: 

- Instagram: @healthywithcourtneyy

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Nourished Living Podcast, where we go beyond diets and quick fixes, and reconnect with what it really means to feel good in your body. I am Courtney Podany, nutritional therapist, personal trainer, energy worker, type one diabetic, and mom here to guide you toward health that feels simple, sustainable, and aligned. Each episode will explore how to nourish your body. Balance your energy and strengthen your intuition so you can thrive and actually understand what your body is telling you. So grab your favorite drink. Take a deep breath, and let's jump into your new nourished life. Hello and welcome back to the Nourished Living Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Podany. Today we are continuing to dive into anxiety, so this is part three of our anxiety series. If you are just joining us new. The past two episodes are my experience living with anxiety, and then practical tips and tricks to help you reduce anxiety. So if you'd like to check those out first before this one, they are available for you. And I do want to apologize. I'm sorry if I sound a little nasally, uh, you know, cold season and kids in schools and stuff. I am a little congested, but Thursday afternoons are the best day for me to record these podcast episodes because my house is quiet. So. I am taking advantage of that. My kids also have a four day weekend this weekend where they'll just be at home with me. So who knows how much work I could get done. Okay, part three, today, I opened it up to all of you. So I have questions that people sent in regarding their experiences with anxiety that I am going to answer. We have six questions. This first one that's going to kick us off is what are some simple anxiety tips that work for all ages and can be easily explained to anyone? First, I would say that anxiety is telling your body that you are not safe right now. Even if the anxiety arose from you imagining a scene in your head of like the worst case scenario of a specific, um. That might not even happen. The anxiety that those thoughts are causing is now emanating throughout your whole body, putting you into fight or flight. That's why things like meditation and deep breathing are so commonly used for things like anxiety and stress because they bring you back to the present moment and basically out of harm's way, which in this case, your mind is the harm. So anything that you can do to tell your body you are currently safe and you are not in an emergency situation, that will help you to ease the anxiety. Anxiety comes from living in the future. So start practicing being here in the moment. One of the easiest tips that would apply to anyone all ages, all genders, all backgrounds, is when you are feeling anxious. Go outside. You literally don't even need to do anything once you are outside, but without fail. This works for me every single time and starts to reduce the anxiety and anxious feelings. When we are inside, there are so many things vying for our attention. The laundry, the dishes, the mess, even tv or you're at work and you're stressed and you're staring at a computer screen and not moving your body. So. Going outside gives us a reset. We get to breathe fresh air, feel the air on our skin, and just be amongst nature. It truly works wonders, and I think it is quite often underestimated. And I know this is something that every single person can do. You don't need any equipment. You don't need to buy anything in order to do it. Just walk outside. And stand there for a few minutes. And fun fact, the color green is actually calming to us as well. We can see more shades of green than any other color out there. And that's by design. That's for a reason. So. When you go outside, if you could even find a bush, a tree, even some weeds in the parking lot that happened to be green, look at them. And that could bring a sense of calm to us too. So something that would apply to everyone would be. Try to stop thinking about the future. Do whatever you personally need to do to get into the moment and go outside and look at some green. Okay. Second, what physical symptoms manifest because of anxiety? Well, chronic anxiety could really lead to like anything really, but here are the most common ones. So a racing heart, right? Your body thinks you're in an emergency situation, so your heart is racing to try to keep you alive, try to keep you on your toes, make sure you can get out of this dire situation. Tight chest and shortness of a breath. I always described mine as just like a pressure or an aching in my chest. Lots of digestive issues can arise from being anxious. I talked about the vagus nerve, which is a cranial nerve that originates in your brain and then it connects to your gut and they are very closely related and in constant contact. We also refer to the gut as our second brain, so that's how. Much, they influence each other. So when you're all up in your head and you're. Anxious and worrying and stressed, that can definitely have an impact on lots of digestive issues and gi distress. It could be constipation, diarrhea, acid reflux, and nausea. Even just feeling like you have a pit in your stomach or your stomach is like churning or flipping upside down. And definitely IBS. I think, I don't have a stat for this, but I know that most people who experience IBS also have some degree of anxiety. Those two usually go hand in hand together. You could also experience dizziness, sweating, and hot flashes, muscle tension. Specifically in the shoulders, neck, and jaw area, which could also, um, which could also result in like teeth grinding at night. Just 'cause you're like clenching things so tightly and when your muscles are tight for a prolonged period of time, they actually. Get shorter, the muscles get shorter because they're always in that shortened state from being tense. So if you constantly have like your shoulders up in your ears, which there is supposed to be some space in between them, then those muscles will get tight and tense and. It can actually be hard to stretch everything out and get them back into the proper position, the proper muscle length, which could lead to. Muscle injuries if you are working out, but you know your shoulders are in your ears, which they're not supposed to be, and you're doing a bench press or what have you, not having your joint. In the right position while lifting heavy could eventually lead to injuries, you could experience chronic fatigue, but then also have insomnia and trouble sleeping as well because you're up late at night worrying. So could go either way, but like I said with the first question, the anxiety is telling our bodies that we're not safe. F. So it kicks us into the sympathetic nervous system of a fight or flight. And in this state, our body starts releasing cortisol, which is the stress hormone. Okay. And it stays present in our bloodstream. So everyone is different. Everyone's physiology is different, but if you experience something while you're stressed, that could also look like anxiety because the cortisol, the stress hormone is circulating around. Okay, number three, why doesn't meditation work for me? I definitely had these thoughts. Um, I don't know, maybe like eight years ago I would sit down and say, okay, I'm gonna meditate, and I would just try to sit there for a few minutes. And I thought meditation was just the absence of thoughts, so I had to sit there and just not think of anything. Well, I'd get like 20 seconds in and realize that I had already thought about A, which led me to B, which led me to C. And now I am, you know, planning out my whole day not, you know, trying to clear my thoughts, but I. Meditation isn't the absence of thoughts. It's sitting in stillness and being present in the moment, being in tune with your body, noticing what your body is doing, and if a thought comes up, you acknowledge it, but then you try to get back into your body. Basically meditation is just trying to get you out of your head. Which is where we spend our future thinking and our anxiety gets you into your body and gets you into the present moment being still and being silent. So I think personally that when you run super anxious and you just try to sit in stillness and silence for five minutes. It's going to be hard for you. It's going to feel uncomfortable, and that is probably what has led you to believe that meditation does not work for you. I think the best way to jump into it would be a guided meditation, at least to begin with, because then you can just focus on the words, what they are saying in the meditation. And typically it'll just be like, you know, inhale, exhale, focus on your breath. But that is the reminder to get back into your body. And hopefully if you are just thinking about the words that they are saying, you're not in your head spiraling, thinking about eight different things. When I first started with the guided meditations, I used the Headspace app, and you may eventually be able to get away from the guided meditations where you can just sit in silence and stillness and be in your body, which is great. There really isn't a wrong way to meditate, but I will say if you are anxious a lot, it might be hard for you when you get started, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for you. I think you just need to keep up with it and it will become easier. Right, and even just starting with three minutes, three minutes of your day. Set for meditating every single day, and you will start to notice a difference. You'll start to notice that you don't have as many thoughts during that time. And now I look forward to my meditation time where I once was one of those who thought that meditation does not work for me. Why am I doing this? So I get it. Just, as with anything. The more we do something, the easier it becomes, right? Don't give up yet. Try to keep up with it. Try to be consistent, and I think you will notice a difference. I also have a three minute meditation and a six minute meditation geared specifically for reducing anxiety and trying to start your day in a calm manner. That is included in my 10 minute calm morning reset. So the link for that is in the show notes if you want to download that. That could be your guided meditation that you use in the morning, or, well, really anytime. So you could start there. Okay. Number three, what is the best thing to calm anxiety when you're ready to go to sleep? I totally understand where this one is coming from. You know, you feel tired and you lay down in your bed. You're so excited to go to sleep and just relax. And then the anxious thoughts and the spiraling and the worrying began, and then you lay there for hours and can't seem to go to sleep. Or even if you wake up in the middle of the night, you know, I feel like. Two or 3:00 AM was like my prime time for waking up and worrying. So that is not fun either, especially because sleep is so important. For this, I would start with, doing your vagus nerve massage. I talked about this in the last episode, but the vagus nerve is responsible for our parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and digest nervous system, and contrary to how we feel we actually wanna be spending the majority of our time in this nervous system. So it runs, on both sides. Down the sides of your head, behind your ears, and down into the sides of your neck. So bring both hands to your neck. Start on the sides, start massaging there. Go up and on your head, behind your ears. Just massage for like one minute, so you can easily do this while you're lying down. So that's like the prep work to try to get you into that parasympathetic state and then to take you out of the future, stop the anxiety spiraling. I would do a body scan exercise. And basically just like anything with anxiety, we are just trying to get you out of your head and into your body. With a body scan, I usually work from top to bottom, so I focus on, okay, I'll start at the top. How is my neck feeling? Is there any tension there? Could I relax it more? How does it feel today? Is it sore, tight, loose, feels good? How does it feel moved on to your arms? How do my arms feel? Do they feel heavy? Are they carrying tension? Could I move them into a more comfortable position right now? And so on and so forth. But you do that for like each area of your body all the way down to your feet. And it's just bringing awareness to your body. Sometimes when you're so anxious, you don't even know how your body feels. You don't even know if your body is connected to your head at some points. So it is to bring you into your body and you know, if you felt like, oh, my leg is kind of in a weird position. You can then move it into a more comfortable position to kind of relax those muscles as well. I would start there to get you into your body, relax everything, get you into your rest and digest nervous system. And if you go through those two things and you are still. Feeling anxious. I would then turn on a guided meditation so you can just listen to the words that they are saying and it'll probably have you do some deep breaths, get into your body and see if that helps if calm everything down. Okay. Question number five. Does anxiety get worse with age? Well, it definitely could, and of course some seasons will be worse than others. But if there are traumas that haven't been taken care of, and if you are not actively doing anything to improve your anxiety, then yeah. It probably will start to snowball. Once you get into the pattern of overthinking and worrying and spiraling, it can be very hard to break out of that cycle. So if you are not putting in any effort to make it better, then yes, I do think it can get worse as life goes on. However, the flip side of that is if you work through healing your past traumas and implement ways to calm your mind, you absolutely can reduce it as well. And I've mentioned trauma a few times throughout this response, so if you haven't worked through past events that might have added or even led to your anxiety, I would highly recommend journaling about it. I've said it before, but when you put pen to paper and get thoughts out of your head, it really can feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. Sometimes things just need to be addressed or processed for you to be able to move on from it. If you do not want your anxiety to get worse with age, start journaling and go back to the last episode where I give you all of my implementable tips to reduce anxiety. And question number six. Why do I feel anxious even when nothing is wrong? Well, the best way I can say it is just like the book title. The body keeps the score. Our body stores traumas. That have not been processed, which could be why you have tight hips or back pain or tense shoulders. That stored tension is telling your body that you are not safe. Your body thinks you are still in danger. So everything could be fine in your current life and what you seem conscious to, but your subconscious is still reliving what happened. And trauma can seem like a big word. So you might be thinking, oh, I never experienced any trauma. That's not me. But there is a term little T trauma. That actually includes things like a bad breakup, bullying, or even teasing, financial stress, perfectionism, or even feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities. So a lot more common things than you might think, and your body remembers them. Again, why journaling can be life changing and working on ways to enter and stay in the parasympathetic nervous system of rest and digest. All right, well. Thank you to everyone who participated and sent in questions. I hope my answers for you, will help you out and let me know if you do download my morning routine and implement something from it, please be sure to snap a picture and tag me on Instagram. I am Healthy with Courtney two y's. I would love to see it. Thank you so much for being here with me. I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for hanging out with me today and tuning into the Nourished Living Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and found something you can start implementing right away to kickstart your nourished transformation. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from these insights. Until next time, stay nourished.