Anxiety is often described as a problem of the mind. People may be told that they are overthinking, worrying too much or imagining what could go wrong.

But anxiety is rarely experienced only in the mind.

It can feel like a racing heart, a tight chest, difficulty breathing, a flushed face, a mind that will not stop, a restless body or a low back that remains tense. A person may know intellectually that they are safe, while their body continues to respond as though something is wrong.

From an energetic perspective, anxiety can be understood as a disruption in the natural flow of energy through the body. That disruption does not look the same in everyone.

At Healing Waters Health Center, they often observe three primary energetic patterns of anxiety. These patterns are connected with the heart, spleen and kidneys. Understanding where the anxiety is showing up can help us look beyond the general label and begin to understand what the body may be communicating.

Heart Anxiety: Electrical Tension in the Chest

The first type of anxiety involves excess electrical tension in and around the heart.

This may be experienced as heart palpitations, tightness or pressure in the chest, difficulty taking a full breath or sudden flushing in the face. Some people describe feeling as though energy is building in the chest or rising upward through the body.

This type of anxiety can feel immediate and intense. The person may feel physically activated even when there is no obvious danger around them.

The heart is highly responsive to emotional and energetic stress. When tension accumulates in this area, the sensations can become frightening, which may create even more anxiety. The person feels the heart race, becomes afraid of the sensation and then experiences another surge of tension.

From an energetic viewpoint, the goal is not simply to tell the person to calm down. It is to help reduce the tension around the heart and allow the energy to move more freely through the chest and the rest of the body.

Because heart palpitations, chest discomfort and breathing difficulty can also have medical causes, new or unexplained symptoms should always be evaluated by an appropriate healthcare provider.

Spleen Anxiety: Racing Thoughts and Rumination

Energetically, the spleen is closely related to the mind and to how we process thoughts, experiences and information. When there is tension in this system, the mind may become caught in repetitive thinking.

A person may replay conversations, worry about what they said, anticipate every possible outcome or continue turning the same problem over without finding resolution. They may know that the thinking is not helping, but still feel unable to stop.

This form of anxiety may show up as:

• Racing thoughts
• Overthinking
• Worry
• Rumination
• Mental fatigue
• Difficulty settling at night
• Replaying past situations

Trying to predict or control the future

The person may feel exhausted, yet the mind continues moving.

This is different from the more physical surge of heart anxiety. The dominant experience is often a mind that cannot complete the cycle of processing and return to stillness.

In these cases, it can be helpful to look at what the mind is trying to resolve. Consider if the person is carrying too much responsibility, repeatedly analyzing a situation that never feels complete or trying to create certainty in a situation that feels unsafe or unpredictable.

Energetic work may help reduce the tension that keeps the mind locked in repetition and support a greater sense of clarity and internal quiet.

Kidney Anxiety: Restlessness and the Survival Response

The third type of anxiety involves the kidneys and the body’s instinctive survival response. This person may become restless when anxious. They may pace, feel unable to sit still, repeatedly change positions or experience a strong need to move. When stress increases, their body prepares for action.

This pattern is closely connected with the fight, flight, freeze or fright response. The body senses danger and begins preparing to protect itself, even when the person may not consciously understand what triggered the reaction.

Kidney-related anxiety may also be accompanied by a tight or braced lower back, near the area where the kidneys are located. The person may feel as though the lower body cannot fully soften.

This anxiety may present as:

• Pacing
• Restlessness
• Feeling unable to settle
• A strong urge to escape
• Startling easily
• Physical bracing
• Tightness in the lower back
• Feeling unsafe without knowing why

Rather than appearing primarily as racing thoughts or chest pressure, this form of anxiety expresses itself through movement, tension and protection.

The body is not being difficult. It is responding as though it needs to survive.

The Beginning of Anxiety

In addition to asking where anxiety is showing up, another important question we ask is:

“When did it begin?”

Anxiety does not always appear without context. It may begin after an accident, illness, injury, loss, frightening experience, conflict, difficult relationship, major life transition or prolonged period of stress.

Sometimes the connection is easy to recognize.

A person may remember that the heart palpitations began after a frightening event. The racing thoughts may have started during a period of overwhelming responsibility. The pacing and restlessness may have appeared after an accident or when the person was living in an environment that did not feel safe.

Other times, the connection is not immediately obvious. The event may have occurred years earlier, or it may not seem significant enough to explain what is happening now.

But the body may remember an experience differently than the conscious mind does.

From an energetic perspective, an event can disrupt the body’s natural flow and leave part of the system in a continued state of tension, vigilance or protection. The event may be over, but the energetic response may remain active.

This is why we ask not only, “What symptoms are you having?” but also, “What was happening in your life when this started?”

Understanding the beginning of the pattern can help reveal why the heart, spleen or kidney system may still be reacting.

Anxiety Patterns Can Overlap

These three energetic patterns do not always occur separately.

A person may begin with spleen-related rumination, then feel the heart begin to race. Another person may experience kidney-based restlessness along with tightness in the chest. Someone may move between all three patterns depending on the situation.

The purpose of identifying the dominant pattern is not to place someone into another rigid category. It is to better understand how anxiety is moving through that individual person.

At Healing Waters, we may ask:

Where do you feel the anxiety first?

Does it begin in the chest?

Does it start with racing thoughts?

Do you feel an urge to pace or move?

Is there tension in the low back?

When did the pattern begin?

What was happening in your life at that time?

These questions help us see the person rather than only the diagnosis.

Supporting the Whole Person

Healing Waters Health Center uses AcuEnergetics and other energy-based therapies to help identify areas of restriction and restore more natural movement through the body’s energetic system.

The goal is not to force someone to feel calm or to suppress the symptoms. It is to help the body release the tension that is keeping it activated.

For one person, the focus may be reducing electrical tension around the heart. For another, it may involve easing the energetic strain of the spleen which is connected with repetitive thinking. For someone else, it may mean helping the body move out of a survival kidney response and feel safe enough to settle.

Meditation, the Energy Enhancement System and the Opus SoundBed may also be included in an individualized plan to support relaxation, energetic balance and greater awareness of what the body is experiencing.

Anxiety is not a weakness, and it is not simply a failure to think positively.

It is a whole-body experience.

When we understand where the anxiety is showing up, how it is being expressed and when it began, we can begin to work with the pattern more directly.

Instead of only asking, “How do I make this stop?” we can begin asking, “What is my body responding to, and what does it need in order to return to balance?”

That question can open a different path toward healing.

Healing Waters Health Center is located at 6150 Oren Ave. N. in Stillwater, Minnesota. The center offers free 30-minute discovery sessions to explore a person’s concerns and determine an appropriate path forward. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 651-430-2866 or visit HealingWatersHealth.com. See ad on page 15.