VICTORIA MASKELL (OS 03)
Slaying the reptile Hypnotherapist, mindset coach, author and ex-SES pupil and teacher Victoria Maskell explains how to battle anxiety.
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ccording to Mark Twain, ‘In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes’ but it seems this quote needs a bit of a modern day update to include anxiety. In light of the changes the world is facing today, more and more of us are experiencing anxiety in one form or another - and this anxiety often leaves us feeling out of control. As human beings we are naturally predisposed to want to be in control, but anxiety is one of those sneaky feelings that can take over our bodies leaving us feeling like we are stuck riding a rollercoaster we didn’t sign up for. Why do so many of us experience anxiety? If you’ve ever felt the racing heart, churning stomach and sweaty palms of anxiety you can thank your ancestors. In fact, you really should thank them because the anxiety they felt is the very reason you are here today to read this article! In prehistoric times, our frontal lobes weren’t developed to allow us to process situations in the way we now can, so we had to rely on something much more primal: our fight or flight response. We have a built in danger detection system that’s sole job is to keep us safe. Without it, our ancestors would have been eaten by lions or consumed poisonous berries and not lived to procreate and produce society as we now know it. In fact, if you’ve ever been called a pessimist or the kind of person who describes the glass as half-empty you would have done well in prehistoric times! It would have been the optimists who would have happily skipped out of their caves in search of new exciting adventures only to be picked off by the neighbourhood bear, not believing his luck! Every time you feel those pangs of anxiety you can thank a part of your brain called the ‘reptilian complex’. Every time you experience something, it starts to look out for situations and experiences that could cause threat to your survival. If it
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