Welcome to Back from the Abyss.

I'm Dr. Craig Hecock, your host and resident psychiatrist.

Today I'm doing a mini episode on how to think about anxiety.

Not everyone has experienced migraines or cancer or autoimmune disease or even depression,

but we all know what anxiety is.

Anxiety is normal. It serves a critical function.

We'd be unable to survive without it.

Yet when dialed up too high, it can be utterly miserable,

paralyzing, and life-wrecking. Anxiety is one of the most common reasons that people seek

medical or psychological help, and it is also one of the more complicated problems to break down

and understand in a way that can guide treatment. Unless we understand the type of anxiety and its possible causes,

we can't hope to dial down the anxiety to a level that's manageable.

We might think of two general types of anxiety.

Above the neck anxiety, which is our ruminating,

catastrophizing, worrying, imagining, spin cycle brain, and below the neck anxiety, which is our ruminating, catastrophizing, worrying, imagining, spin cycle brain, and below the neck

anxiety, which is the fight-flight response, fueled by adrenaline and cortisol, manifesting with

physical symptoms of anxiety such as tightness in the chest, tremors, sweating, irritable bowel,

upset stomach, and physical dread.

Typically, people have one type that predominates, and often that type will fuel the other.

For example, anxiety might begin below the neck with an adrenaline surge leading to chest

pain and tightness. Then the above thethe-neck anxiety starts as the brain begins

to spin out on all the possible causes of this seemingly ominous and frightening symptom.

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