Anxiety: Simpler than you think
Understanding Anxiety: Why It's Simpler Than You Think
Anxiety can feel like an unsolvable mystery. For those who live with it, it’s overwhelming, relentless, and often misunderstood by even the most well-meaning professionals.
But what if I told you that anxiety is actually much simpler than it seems? That it can be boiled down to a simple formula—and that recovery is not only possible but entirely within your reach?
This isn’t just wishful thinking; it’s grounded in neuroscience and echoes the groundbreaking work of Dr. Claire Weekes, whose insights into anxiety remain just as relevant today as they were in 1962.
The Formula for Anxiety
Here’s the formula for how anxiety forms and persists over time:
a = b + t
a: represents the anxiety disorder.
b: is the behavior in response to fear (like avoidance, seeking reassurance, or compulsive checking).
t: is time.
In short, anxiety disorders form when we repeatedly respond to fear in ways that reinforce it, over time. The brain learns that avoidance or reassurance keeps us 'safe,' strengthening those neural pathways and making the cycle more entrenched. But here’s the good news: recovery follows the exact same formula:
r = b + t
r: is recovery.
b: Change b (your behavior in response to fear), and
t: over time, the brain learns a new response—one that doesn’t involve anxiety.
That’s it. As complicated as anxiety feels, this formula is as complicated as it needs to be. The key lies in breaking the cycle by changing how we respond to fear.
Dr. Claire Weekes: A Pioneer Ahead of Her Time
In 1962, Dr. Claire Weekes wrote her revolutionary book, *Self Help for Your Nerves*. At a time when little was understood about anxiety, she described how the nervous system becomes 'sensitized,' leading to the debilitating symptoms of anxiety. Her advice? To 'face, accept, float, and let time pass.' These simple steps align perfectly with modern neuroscience’s understanding of anxiety and neuroplasticity.
Dr. Weekes understood that anxiety wasn’t a flaw or a mental weakness but a physical state of nervous system dysregulation. Her insights about sensitization—that the brain and body become hyperreactive through repeated fear responses—are now supported by what we know about the amygdala, insula, and other key brain regions involved in anxiety.
Her work was groundbreaking, offering practical solutions to people who felt lost in their anxiety. Modern neuroscience only reinforces her teachings, proving that by changing our behaviors and giving our brains time to unlearn fear, we can fully recover.
The Science Behind the Formula
Here’s how anxiety loops work in the brain (see image 1):
The insula detects bodily sensations and flags them as alarming.
The amygdala interprets these sensations as dangerous, triggering the fight-or-flight response.
The hippocampus pulls up memories that confirm the threat, reinforcing the fear.
The locus coeruleus floods the body with norepinephrine, heightening alertness and worsening the physical symptoms.
The periaqueductal gray tries to regulate the response, but it struggles under the weight of all these signals.
This loop intensifies with avoidance and reassurance behaviors, creating a cycle that makes anxiety feel worse over time.
Image1: Basic anxiety neuro biology diagram
Why Anxiety Worsens Over Time
One of the most challenging aspects of anxiety is how it seems to grow stronger and more overwhelming over time. This is because the nervous system and the brain become increasingly sensitized through repeated exposure to fear and avoidance behaviors. Essentially, the brain learns to overreact, and this hypersensitivity makes both the physical symptoms and psychological fear more intense and debilitating.
Here’s how it happens:
The Insula becomes hyper-vigilant, scanning the body for sensations and flagging even normal feelings as dangerous. This amplifies awareness of symptoms like a racing heart or dizziness, which feeds back into the fear cycle.
The Amygdala fires off alarm signals more easily and becomes harder to calm. Over time, it 'learns' that almost any sensation or situation could be a threat.
The Hippocampus reinforces the cycle by storing fearful memories, making the brain quicker to associate similar situations or sensations with danger.
The Locus Coeruleus floods the body with norepinephrine more readily, keeping you on high alert and making it harder to relax.
The Periaqueductal Gray struggles to regulate this heightened fear response, leaving you feeling stuck in fight, flight, or freeze mode.
This cycle creates a feedback loop where every fear response strengthens the pathways in the brain that produce anxiety. In other words, the more the nervous system reacts, the more it 'learns' to react, and the more sensitized it becomes. This is why anxiety symptoms worsen over time, often becoming overwhelming and debilitating.
The good news? Just as the brain and nervous system can learn to become sensitized, they can also learn to desensitize. Changing your behavior and response to fear—facing it rather than avoiding it—allows the brain to unlearn its hypersensitivity and rewire itself for calm. This process takes time, but it’s absolutely achievable.
Breaking Free
Here’s the truth: anxiety is not a permanent condition. It’s a learned response, and because of neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to change—it can be unlearned. Dr. Claire Weekes knew this long before modern neuroscience caught up, and her teachings remain a lifeline for anyone trapped in the cycle of fear.
If you’re a therapist or doctor, consider explaining anxiety in these terms to your patients. By understanding the brain and body’s role in anxiety, we can demystify it and give people the tools they need to recover. And if you’re someone living with anxiety, take heart: recovery isn’t just possible—it’s inevitable when you change your behavior and allow time to do its work.
This article is inspired by the work of Dr. Claire Weekes and her book *Self Help for Your Nerves*, a must-read for anyone wanting to understand and overcome anxiety.
Just remember it is simple! Not easy, but simple
a (anxiety) = b (behaviour in response to fear) + t (time)
r (recovery) = b (change your behaviour in response to fear) + t (time)
Courage and behaviour are important, but so is time!
Most people give up on recovery because they change their behaviour, the anxiety doesn’t go away, so they give up! Remember the formula, TIME! TIME is the real healer. If you don’t see results in days or weeks or even months, don’t give up! The brain will relearn eventually. You just need to give it time.
Good Luck
Tom x
