Are You Biologically Wired To Be An Anxious Person? Here's How To Tell

We can soothe the overwhelm of anxiety through what we do for ourselves.

Anxious friends, hear me now: There is no way to ignore or "hack" care of our bodies. A body that is sick, out of balance, overtired, or undernourished will move into stress overdrive syndrome. The body is under siege from lifestyle influences and biological imbalances—these are entirely under our control—and sends out stress signals that demand our attention to mobilize energy reserves for survival. For many of us this translates into the heightened discomfort of anxiety and of being more easily triggered into anxious states.

My functional medicine background has led me to understand anxiety as a symptom of imbalance, not a disease. Numbing it or medicating it doesn't address the underlying root causes (though may provide much-needed respite for those in real trouble). I've had to contend with my personal biology to discover the ways in which I am more vulnerable to anxiety. A few key corrections to my nutrition and lifestyle have made a world of difference. For all of us, self-care is a critical inroad to smoothing out the rough edges of anxiety.

Remove all food irritants like grains and dairy for a time to see if they are causing an imbalance. Get rid of sugars, especially high-fructose corn syrup and refined carbohydrates, including starchy vegetables and high-sugar-content fruit. Maximize nutrition by eating more plants, especially dark greens, and multicolored varieties. Optimize your protein intake and eat healthy fats. It is recommended to do nutrition testing if you suffer from anxiety (at-home kits are very helpful, but I also recommend seeing a functional medicine doctor for a full screening) to identify unique needs and to look at key genetic markers that address areas where our physiologies are vulnerable. Some people need to avoid stimulants like coffee and chocolate or excesses of alcohol, for example.

Through a combination of stress reduction (meditation, exercise, and mindfulness), antioxidants, and s-adenosyl-methionine (SAM-e)—200 mg taken at bedtime—I have felt better. This can be a tough one to correct—the stress reduction piece is critical and is a challenge to sustain in this crazy world.

This is when the immune system is in a persistent state of hypervigilance, leading to stress overdrive syndrome, driving anxiety for susceptible people. Food irritants and sensitivities, chronic infections, allergies, toxins, gut flora imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, and chronic lack of sleep are all common causes—they all drive persistent immune system activation. In my experience, I've seen (and felt) immune system overdrive lead to continuous abundance of the chemical mediators of inflammation, released by the activated immune cells that promote stress as the body's effort to support survival. Addressing these sensitivities, infections, toxins, and deficiencies will downshift the immune response, soothe the vigilant stress response, and calm our moods and minds.

To solve for these, the best way is to see a naturopathic doctor or functional medicine expert.

Anxiety is my guide. I want to keep the way it gets my attention, leading me to positive action. What I want to change is my worry that it's something wrong with me by using food and mindfulness practices to balance out genetic and biological imbalances that could lead to anxiety.