6 Types of Anxiety
Anxiety-
It is a vague word. It can mean something completely different to you and to someone else.
It’s experienced differently and it arises from different places.
In clinic and within myself, I see anxiety in many ways. Often, it’s a useful force, propelling us to accomplish tasks or move through the unfamiliar… and sometimes it works against us and burns through our energy, keeping us braced for threats that don’t exist. It can hinder our daily movements and make ordinary moments feel overwhelming.
A healthy balance gives us the power to focus and move through stressors as well as the power to slow down and rest.
It becomes detrimental when it consumes too much of your energy and causes a hypersensitivity and hyper-reactivity to stressors.
Medication and general stress-reduction activities can help to restore some of the balance - and while these are helpful (and often necessary), they can miss the important differences in how people suffer with anxiety.
Traditional Chinese medicine doesn’t recognise anxiety as one thing. Instead it understands it as a manifestation of imbalances in different organ systems, each creating a distinct flavour of distress. Identifying your specific anxiety pattern helps to form targeted treatments to address your root cause of anxiety, instead of just managing the symptoms.
Here are 6 common types of anxiety I see and possible signs, based on the channels of TCM:
Excess Liver-channel stagnation type anxiety - feeling wired, high-functioning, hyper-reactive/sensitive to stressors, muscle tension (neck, shoulders, jaw, pelvic floor, etc.), IBS, waking up at 1-3am, cold hands and feet, feeling hot, headaches, irritability and frustration, PMS symptoms, constant sighing
Liver deficiency type anxiety - vivid dreams, difficult falling asleep, headaches, dry eyes, tight muscles
Spleen deficiency type anxiety - fatigue, low mood, heaviness, appetite increased or decreased, diarrhea or constipation, overthinking and worry
Heart type anxiety - insomnia or poor sleep, palpitations, underarm or palm sweating, vivid dreams, easily startled, racing mind
Kidney type anxiety - often stems from fear or trauma, insomnia, fatigue, “wired but tired”, worse with exhaustion, low back pain
Lung type anxiety - often stems from grief and sadness, panic attacks, shallow breathing “not enough air”, skin conditions
How do I know which type I have?
Many of us have more than one. Getting to know how you experience your anxiety allows us to understand your array of factors that contribute to your experience.
Before a proper diagnosis by a TCM practitioner, you can observe patterns in your anxiety:
what physical symptoms accompany it - palpitations, sweating, muscle tension, gut disruption, etc.
what triggers or relieves your anxiety?
are there specific emotional themes that arise - grief, worry, rumination, frustration, fear
when does it often arise?