When I think of my childhood, I remember a lot of great moments and joyful times. But, for whatever reason, I predominantly remember a sense of uncertainty, insecurity and anger. My father was volatile and I didn’t feel that my emotional needs were being met by my parents. For a variety of reasons, I ended up being an angry kid, and I’ve spent much of my life since then learning how to not be so angry and how to deal with high levels of anxiety and recurring depression.
This underlying feeling of anxiety and fear from my childhood has felt like a permanent fixture in my everyday life as far back as I can remember. It has felt like my brain has remained locked in a state of arrested development, even when life occasionally feels mostly “fine”.
I’ve told many stories in this blog, on DoYogaWithMe, and in my newsletter, about my long periods of depression, intense social anxiety and thoughts of suicide. I’ve also talked about the time and energy that was required to learn how to witness how I was feeding it, and effort needed to learn how to shift it into something less destructive. I experimented a lot with different approaches and read through loads of research on why anxiety becomes chronic, which allowed me to take baby steps and the occasional leap toward better mental health. This article is a summary of some of the research that has helped me better understand what I was experiencing.
The HPA Axis & Allostatic Load: An Alarm That Won’t Shut Off
Whether you’re managing chronic stress, high-functioning anxiety, or a restlessness you can’t quite shake, anxiety becomes chronic through biological systems and thought-behavior loops that have learned to remain activated.
The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis is your main stress‑response system. In healthy moments, it ramps up in response to a threat and calms down afterward. But when stress or worry stays consistent, your HPA axis doesn’t downshift, leading to chronically elevated cortisol levels and internal tension—think of it like an engine idling too high for too long. Scientists refer to the damage caused by this persistent activation as allostatic load—wear and tear on the brain and body that leads to structural change and reduced stress resilience. Left unaddressed, this cortisol flood can affect brain function, namely the hippocampus (which helps regulate fear), the prefrontal cortex (your executive control center), and the amygdala (your brain’s fear alarm).
The Amygdala and Prefrontal Cortex
When anxiety or fear becomes chronic:
- The amygdala is hyper-reactive, tagging neutral moments with fear or worry.
- The prefrontal cortex (PFC) loses regulatory control, making logical thought harder in moments of tension.
It’s a simple relationship. When the PFC cannot calm the amygdala, your brain’s “fear button” stays stuck in the on position. You then enter a loop where worry is both a trigger and a symptom.
Ok, that’s what is happening in my brain. But why? What is causing it?
Trauma & Epigenetics: The Deep Roots of Activation
As you can imagine, that is a much more difficult question to answer. The patterns that we have learned throughout our lives certainly play a role. Interestingly, so does our biology; research suggests that trauma experienced by one generation can affect the gene expression of subsequent generations, potentially leading to inherited vulnerabilities to mental health issues. Through epigenetic changes and modifications to how stress-response genes are expressed, your body can become programmed at a genetic level to stay hyper-alert.
Adverse childhood experiences are shown to cause lasting changes in HPA activity, amygdala reactivity, and even immune responses—laying the groundwork for anxiety later, even decades down the line.
The Role of Gut-Brain Feedback and Inflammation
Our gut microbiota plays a surprising role in anxiety. A dysregulated gut—due to chronic stress or poor diet—can activate the HPA axis, promote inflammation, and reduce production of calming neurotransmitters like GABA and serotonin. This creates a feedback loop where anxiety harms the gut, and gut imbalance fuels anxiety.
Behavioral Patterns That Keep Anxiety Alive
All of this is often being fed by repetitive patterns of behavior. What can begin as protective action (avoiding stress triggers) becomes chronic avoidance, which only reinforces fear. This is known as the fear-avoidance cycle—you avoid discomfort, feel short-term relief, but reinforce the neural pattern that anxiety is real and must be avoided. Other patterns like compulsive reassurance-seeking, rumination, or avoidance of exercise also feed the loop. Over time, these behaviors become habitual—even unconscious.
Nervous System Signs of Dysregulation
When the sympathetic nervous system is chronically active and the parasympathetic (“rest-and-digest”) system is underused, people experience insomnia, digestive problems, tension, emotional reactivity, and lowered immunity. These symptoms aren’t psychological—they’re physiological realities of a body stuck in fight-or-flight mode.
So What Can We Do About It?
I have dedicated much of my life to answering this question, and it’s the most common topic of my writing. To see some of what I have written and a few of my suggestions, check out the other articles in my Blog, my Approach to Finding Anxiety Relief and my experience with speaking and story-telling.
What I do strongly believe is that the brain is neuroplastic: successful treatment—like exposure therapies or mindfulness—can restore balance and reverse neural changes.
A Holistic Path Forward: Relearning Safety
To move from chronic anxiety toward calm, the most effective approaches engage both top-down and bottom-up pathways:
| Strategy | Why It Works |
|---|---|
| Exposure Therapy | Relearn safety by confronting avoided situations |
| Mindfulness / Meditation | Quiet the amygdala and rebuild PFC regulation |
| Breathwork & Pranayama | Activate parasympathetic responses quickly |
| Movement / Somatic release | Discharge stored tension in the body |
| Nutrition / Gut Support | Restore brain-gut communication and calm inflammation |
Your Anxiety Is Learned, But It Can Be Untrained
If you have read some of my writing, you will know that meditation was initially a game-changer for me, and now I consider it a literal super power, if practiced correctly and daily. Pranayama is an incredibly effective way to learn how to meditate quicker and to get more out of each meditation practice. Other approaches that push you out of your comfort zone or deepen your relaxation, can also be very effective, like hot-cold therapy, progressive relaxation and rapid breathing techniques.
It’s also important to note that our relationship with anxiety is critical when considering how to heal. We must know, in our hearts, that anxiety isn’t a personal flaw or failure. Rather, it is a coping mechanism that you have relied on for a very long time. And because of that, it has morphed into a set of learned responses and biological feedback loops that continue to have a protective function, but are no longer needed.
In terms of what to do, I have so many resources! Check out my Free Resources and Online Programs and browse through all of the Yoga Classes on DoYogaWithMe that are for stress and anxiety (you can search for them yourself by choosing ‘Stress and Anxiety’ under the Focus filter.
If you really want a specific suggestion, try this:
- First thing in the morning: Do the 8-min class Pranayama for Anxiety I, followed by the ‘Turn It Off’ meditation on this page. (If you have less time, do one of these 6-min meditations)
- Twice during the day: Do the meditation called Mindfulness Meditation: Focus on this page. (If you have less time, do one of these 6-min meditations)
- Just before you go to bed: Do one of the meditations on the album Yoga Nidra: Sleep Sessions or Yoga Meditations for Sleep.
Commit to doing the above every day. Let your family and friends know so they can support you. And know that it’s not about erasing anxiety entirely—it’s about rewiring your brain and body so that anxiety no longer runs you.
Sources and Further Reading:
- Mayo Clinic: Anxiety disorders symptoms & causes
- VeryWellMind: Brain regions involved in anxiety
- Zwetsloot et al. Stress & HPA axis effects on hippocampus (2024) SpringerLink
- Nature: Allostatic load and stress biology
- Frontiers in Neuroscience (2025): HPA and gut-brain axis
- PMC review of anxiety neurobiology
- Wikipedia: Fear-avoidance behavioral model
- VeryWellMind: Parasympathetic regulation and mental health