Addressing any mental hurdle or issue head-on can help us fully heal.
Personally, I credit therapy as being essential to achieving my goals. Though there’s still a lot of work to be done, I’m grateful that the stigma around mental health is beginning to change for the better.
One of the primary challenges that many people face regarding their mental health is anxiety. Whether it’s been a problem they’ve always faced throughout their life, or it’s something that comes and goes, the effects of anxiety can be crippling.
That’s why I’m pumped to share today’s episode with you!
My guest is Dr. Ellen Vora, a well-known holistic psychiatrist who has made a difference in the lives of many people. In this conversation, we cover the difference between true and false anxiety, how to properly heal from trauma, and how we can all turn our anxiety into a superpower!
Who Is Dr. Ellen Vora?
Ellen Vora, MD, is a holistic and board-certified psychiatrist, acupuncturist, and yoga teacher. She takes a functional medicine approach to mental health — considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root, rather than reflexively prescribing medication to suppress symptoms. Her focus is everything from physical health, sleep, nutrition, digestion, thought patterns, relationships, and community, to one’s connection with nature, creativity, and purpose.
She is also the writer of the book The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response, a practical, informative, and profoundly hopeful book that fully explains the origins of anxiety and offers a detailed road map for healing and growth. This is aligned with her goal of empowering people and helping them lead fulfilling lives.
Dr. Vora received her B.A. in English from Yale University and her M.D. from Columbia University. She currently lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
The Difference Between True And False Anxiety
Anxiety is an emotional and physical response to a situation that we perceive as potentially stressful or dangerous.
While it’s normal to experience anxiety in some instances, it can quickly develop into an unhealthy condition when it becomes uncontrollable. To make matters worse, many people who feel anxiety don’t know what to do to help themselves, leading to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
To navigate this situation, Dr. Vora explains how anxiety is diagnosed. She refers to using the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM), a classification of mental disorders produced by the American Psychiatric Association. The manual was an effort to standardize diagnoses and treatment between different practitioners and facilities. If you have enough symptoms that qualify for a diagnosis of clinical anxiety or panic, you can refer to it to unlock medication.
However, in the holistic approach that Dr. Vora practices, only two classifications exist — true and false anxiety. So how are they different? She explains,
“False anxiety is our avoidable, unnecessary, and preventable anxiety. Simply speaking, its sources are these seemingly benign aspects of modern life that are tipping our body into a stress response.” – Dr. Ellen Vora
For some, this might sound as if their suffering is invalidated. However, what Dr. Vora is saying here is that there is a path out. This path has to do with managing the ways our physical body gets out of balance whether by a blood sugar crash, inflammation, chronic sleep deprivation, micronutrient deficiency, too much strong coffee or alcohol, or something else.
“Now, what remains after you’ve taken care of these sources of false anxiety is true anxiety. That’s purposeful anxiety and not something to medicate away. It’s not a nuisance and not something to pathologize. It’s something to slow down and listen to. … It could be a relationship that we’re in. It could be something to do with our work life. It could have something to do with our community or the world around us.” – Dr. Ellen Vora
Dealing with anxiety can feel like we’re fighting an uphill battle due to factors that intensify our symptoms. However, knowing the differences between true and false anxiety gives us the beginning of a framework that can help every individual to have a healthy and more enlightened way of approaching anxiety in their lives. If they think that their anxiety is caused by their lifestyle, they can reduce it with self-care techniques like getting a good night’s rest or keeping in tune with their body for a better diet.
On the other hand, if you’re still feeling anxious after changes have been made, you might need to stop and listen to what your body is telling you. Once you have listened to it, honored it, heeded the messages, and taken steps accordingly, you can remove the discomfort caused by anxiety.
Instead, you can have a feeling of purpose — a very different kind of charge.
