Welcome to Stretch—your guide to reclaiming your body as a powerful tool (not just a wobble of flesh) for creativity, focus and resilience.

⏪ Last edition, I reflected on my obsession with non-stop input and stimulation. I banned AirPods from my runs 18 months ago and running has become my “safe space” from the madness. Catch up on that here.

⏩ This edition, I’m sharing how the book Good Anxiety by Dr. Wendy Suzuki has helped me understand and re-frame my (primal brain’s) anxiousness around quitting my job.

Anxiety—the most misunderstood emotion.

So, I quit my full-time job a couple of weeks ago and am going to give solopreneurship a go. It’s a well-thought-out move. There are several projects on the go. And most importantly: I’m extremely excited by what I’m working on—which is a not-to-be underestimated force when it comes to work.

And yet.

There are moments of unease and downright pessimissim. “What the hell have I done? So many people try this and can’t make it work. Why do you think you’ll be any different?” Last week I had one of those days. It was so bad… that it was fascinating. I tried to write down exactly what I was so worried about, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was just this background hum of doom and gloom.

I picked up Good Anxiety by neuroscientist Dr. Wendy Suzuki from my bookshelf. I bought it randomly a few weeks ago and hadn’t touched it since. Perhaps something in me knew it would be just what I’d need.

Dr. Suzuki goes pretty deep into brain anatomy and physiology, explaining where and how anxiety is created in our brain and body. Since the sensations were so fresh in my mind, I could easily connect what she was describing with how I had been feeling, and that instantly reduced the emotional charge around the anxiety. The book also gave me some empathy for my primal brain, trying to keep me safe, unaware that there’s nothing to fear. I understood that in the past, it made sense to be pessimistic and follow the tribe, and so that’s how we’re wired. But today, where downsides are limited and upsides are unlimited, it makes sense to be optimistic and take some risks.

Not a bad ROI for a $15 book!

Here’s a bit more on what I’ve learned:

Anxiety is a signal from your brain and body to pay attention—nothing more, nothing less.

Anxiety is an arousal or activation of your brain and body when they encounter a negative stimuli or stressor. This arousal is unpleasant but it’s meant to be. It’s your system alerting you that something is wrong and you need to pay attention.

I could tell I had started to fear anxiety. I’d feel the first signs in my body and I’d feel helpless and exasperated. “Not again!!” Reframing anxiety as energy in my body removes that layer of judgment. There’s no good or bad—it’s entirely neutral. The judgment comes from my thinking mind.

But so where does this energy activation come from?

It’s your amygdala working over-time to make sure you don’t die.

Deep inside your brain sits your amygdala, the brain’s threat detection center and director of the primal brain. This tiny, almond-shaped area of your brain scans thousands of pieces of information every second, from sights, sounds and smells to thoughts and emotions.

When the amygdala flags something as threatening, it immediately transmits signals to other brain regions to say, “Pay attention team, something’s off.” This ancient part of our brain works so fast that we’re barely conscious of its functioning.

The hypothalamus, which controls the body’s stress response through the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), is then responsible for preparing your body for action:

• Physiological response: increased heart rate, shallow and faster breathing, sweaty palms, a surge of adrenaline and cortisol, and shutting down reproductive and digestive systems. 

• Emotional response: immediate feeling of fear because of cortisol release

All of these reactions combined are experienced as the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response.

And, this doesn’t necessarily feels like full-on panic mode. These physiological changes can be very subtle, almost imperceptible to your conscious mind.

For me, having this awareness removes a lot of the negativity around the sensations of anxiety. For example, the first sensation I usually notice is this annoying, queasy feeling in my stomach. I’ve now learned this is an indication of blood rushing away from my digestive system to my muscles. Hah, how harmless, nothing to be worried about!

Our ancient brains have not fully caught up with our modern environments.

The only problem is:

The activation of all these systems is obviously useful for dangerous situations. But most of the time, I don’t need to be worried for my survival.

But my brain doesn’t know that.

My amygdala still operates as it was millions of years ago, as if I’m living on the savannah, foraging food, reliant on my tribe for survival and protection.

As Dr. Suzuki writes, “As humans have advanced over time and our world has become more complicated, structured and socially driven, our brains have not entirely caught up with the increasing social, intellectual and emotional demands of our environment, which is why we feel anxiety as out of control.”

Our primal brain, which includes the amygdala and hypothalamus, is not adapt at assessing the nuances of threats.

Nuances. Reading that word in the book was very important for me. I kept nodding my head, mentally running through my list of fears and “what ifs” and something clicked. To my amygdala, leaving the safety and structure of a job and steady paycheck equals loss of reputation within the tribe and risk of a slow and lonely death. It doesn’t have the capability to assess what is truly a threat and what is imagined.

Another real aha moment: the amygdala doesn’t just evaluate and respond to external stimuli. It does exactly the same for internally generated stimuli, like thoughts and memories, and responds in a similar way as it does to external threats.

Understanding this was the last push I needed to, for once and for all hopefully, delete Instagram from my phone. Every single time I’m on there, I feel anxious. I see now that is because scrolling through these flashy posts and ads, my amygdala is having a field day.

Example of one of these ‘thought > anxiety’ cycles:

• I see a post from some kind of breathwork “guru” selling their course or retreat

• Thoughts along the lines of “I don’t want to be associated with this. Do people think I’m like that? I want to share breathwork in a very different way. But will anyone be interested in my approach?” pop up. 

• I’m barely conscious of this train of thought as I’m scrolling, but my amygdala immediately gets to work.

• I notice the sensations and changes in my body, and it’s only when I take a minute to reflect on what was going on in my head and even scroll back to see which posts I was looking at, that I realize what has happened.

This lack of discernment of our amygdala and overall lack of awareness keeps us stuck in anxiety mode, often even without realizing.

The good news: we can train our brains to be more resilient.

Luckily, our brains have evolved just enough so we have newer parts of our brain that can help override these automatic fear-based responses, like our prefrontal cortex.

That’s why I have the ability to observe my thoughts, read a book about anxiety, and reframe my bodily sensations from bad to neutral, or even good, and write about it here!

Of course, we can’t remove the stress response entirely because it’s so primal and automatic, but we can use tools that help us manage the anxiety and even inoculate ourselves from future anxiety and stress responses.

This was another huge mindshift for me: every anxious moment is an opportunity.

The better I can get at first feeling the anxiety (not panicking, not pushing away); observing the sensations; and then immediately acting to mitigate the stress response, the more control I will have over anxiety in the future.

Research has shown that through learning and experience, the connections and functions of the amygdala can adapt and change over time. That’s the beauty of neuroplasticity. Our brains are plastic, flexible and designed to adapt.

The book describes a whole range of tools (40 in total!) In the moment, it’s quite hard to manage the mind with the mind so you need to have your “go-to tools” so you don’t even need to think about it.

Here are my 3:

• Use your breath. Your breath gives you direct access to your autonomic nervous system, and it’s always with you. The simplest thing to do is to consiously slow down your breathing, and make your exhale double as long as your inhale. You can also experiment with a 4-6-8 exercise: breathe in for 4, hold for 6, exhale for 8.

• No multi-tasking. Research has shown that multi-tasking puts too much of a cognitive load on our executive functions, and can trigger or worsen anxiety. So when I start feeling nervous, I simplify the to-do list and focus on one thing. I ask myself, “What’s the one thing that, if done today, will make me feel good about today?”

• Move your body. This is my mantra, “when stuck, get up.” Exercise is the best natural mood boost and anxiety removal. When you go for a walk or a run, you are self-generating optic flow, and this quiets down activity in the amygdala. Dr. Suzuki actually delivered one of the most popular TED talks ever on how exercise is the most transformative thing you can do for your brain.

What else I’m up to…