Anxiety or just being human? Reframing normal emotional responses

You feel your heart racing. A tightness in your chest. That familiar swirl of thoughts you can’t quite slow down. Is it anxiety again? Is something wrong with me?

We’re living in a time when the word anxiety is everywhere, and in many ways, that’s a good thing. There’s more openness, more honesty, and less stigma around mental health than ever before. But there’s a shadow side to this increased awareness, too. When we label every uncomfortable emotion or bodily response as 'anxiety', we risk losing sight of something essential: being human is messy. It’s emotional. It’s uncertain. And not every feeling needs to be pathologised.

After the collective trauma of COVID-19, many of us are still living with nervous systems that haven't fully settled. Even if we 'coped well', we were surviving through uncertainty, change, grief and disruption. For many, that fight-or-flight response never really switched off. So, when something stressful happens now, our hearts race and our thoughts spiral - and we think, there it is again: my anxiety.

But what if it’s not a sign that something’s wrong? What if it’s simply your body doing what it was designed to do?

Let’s take a breath together and explore this more gently.

When 'anxiety' becomes a catch-all for being human

As a therapist, I often hear people say:

• “I get anxious when someone doesn’t reply to my message.”

• “I feel anxious about going to the gym.”

• “I have anxiety when I speak up in meetings.”

These are all valid experiences, and yes, anxiety might be part of the picture. But sometimes, what we’re really describing is fear, discomfort, awkwardness, uncertainty, or emotional vulnerability. All very human things. All natural responses to life.

The danger in calling everything anxiety is that we start to believe something is fundamentally wrong with us; these everyday emotions are problems to be solved, rather than experiences to be understood. We become afraid of our own feelings, and that fear can make everything feel worse.

Sometimes, the more we try to stop feeling anxious, the more anxious we become. We start to monitor ourselves, constantly checking if we’re calm enough, coping well enough, and performing well enough. And in that self-monitoring, we stop being present. We stop trusting ourselves. We lose sight of the fact that it’s OK to feel things deeply.

Your body isn’t broken - it’s trying to protect you

Many of the sensations we associate with anxiety - racing heart, tight chest, shallow breath, tension - come from your nervous system’s natural survival response. When your brain perceives danger, real or imagined, your body prepares to fight or run. This is the fight-or-flight system in action, and it has evolved to keep us alive.

But modern life is full of stressors that your body interprets as threats: an unread email, a deadline, financial pressure, or conflict with a loved one. These aren’t tigers chasing us - but to your nervous system, they can feel just as urgent.

And post-pandemic, this system is even more sensitive. For years, we were in a collective state of heightened alert. Navigating loss, fear, isolation, changing rules and routines, all while being told to “just adapt.” The body remembers, even if the world has moved on.

Many people haven’t had time, space, or support to process what they went through during the pandemic. So they carry on - but with an internal alarm system still quietly switched on.

How online life affects our sense of safety

One of the more invisible impacts of post-COVID life is how our ways of working and relating have changed and how that affects our nervous system.

Many people are still working online, spending long days in video meetings or behind screens. While there are benefits to remote working, it can also mean:

• Reduced connection with colleagues and community.

• Fewer opportunities for informal conversation and emotional regulation through shared presence.

• More screen time, less physical movement, and long periods of being “on” in front of a camera.

When we’re on video calls, we often only see head and shoulders. We lose the full range of body language, movement, and relational cues our nervous system relies on to feel safe. Some people find being on camera triggering, like being watched but unable to move. This can activate subtle freeze or fawn responses, where the body shuts down or over-accommodates to keep things smooth.

Over time, this lack of embodied connection (both with others and with ourselves) can contribute to ongoing dysregulation. That’s when we start interpreting everyday sensations as signs of anxiety or panic because we’ve lost our anchor to safety.

And we don’t often talk about how lonely this can feel. For some, remote working has meant weeks or months without meaningful contact - no shared tea breaks, no hugs, no real eye contact. That absence of community and co-regulation can leave us feeling untethered, emotionally fragile, and unsure of how to return to ourselves.

Being “fine” all the time is exhausting

There’s also a cultural expectation that we should be fine - productive, resilient, and emotionally regulated - no matter what. When we don’t feel that way, we assume we’re failing. We think we must be broken, weak, or “too sensitive.”

But the truth is: it’s normal to be impacted by life. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed, scared, uncertain, or low. These aren’t signs of failure, they’re part of being a sensitive, responsive, emotionally alive human being.

If you’re feeling more unsettled lately, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It might just mean you need rest, connection, and space to come back to yourself.

How can therapy help?

Therapy isn’t about getting rid of anxiety. And it isn’t about fixing you because you’re not broken.

What therapy can offer is:

• A safe, grounded space to pause and check in with what’s really happening inside.

• Time to slow down and name what you’re feeling, without being judged or rushed.

• A chance to understand why you might be stuck in survival mode - and how that makes sense, given your life.

• Support to reconnect with your body, your breath, your boundaries, and your sense of choice.

• A compassionate relationship that models safety, regulation, and curiosity.

Often, people come to therapy thinking they need to get back to their old selves. But sometimes, what’s really needed is permission to become a new version of you, one that feels less pressured, more in tune, and less afraid of feeling things.

Therapy can help you build emotional capacity. That means not just coping with anxiety, but learning how to respond to life from a place of self-awareness, rather than self-judgment.

You don’t have to do that work alone. And you don’t have to be “in crisis” to seek help. In fact, many people come to therapy simply because they’re tired of carrying the weight of their feelings in silence.

You are not broken for feeling deeply. You are not weak for needing space. And not every emotional response means there’s something wrong with you.

Sometimes what we’re calling “anxiety” is simply your body saying: I’ve been holding too much for too long. Sometimes it’s your heart saying: I need care, not criticism. Sometimes it’s your whole self saying: I just want to feel safe.

Therapy isn’t a quick fix. But it can be a gentle place to return to yourself. To understand your nervous system. To reframe what you’ve been told is “too sensitive” or “too anxious.” And to slowly, steadily, start to feel more at home in your body and your life.

If that sounds like something you’re curious about, you’re not alone.