While relaxation is supposed to help fight against anxiety disorders, we sometimes find that these relaxation sessions are themselves the cause … of anxiety. American researchers have tried to understand this paradox.
From researchers found that people who are most sensitive to changes in negative emotions, moving quickly from a state of relaxation to a state of fear, are more likely to feel anxious when they participate in exercises for…relaxation! Michelle Newman, a psychology professor at Penn State, said the findings could help people experiencing “relaxation-induced anxiety,” a phenomenon that occurs when people become more anxious during relaxation training.
“People can stay anxious to prevent a big change, but it’s actually healthier to embrace change,” says Michelle Newman. The more you do it, the more you realize you can do it, and it’s best to let yourself be relaxed sometimes. Meditation trainings and other interventions can help people let go and live in the moment.”
A constant worry
The study also shows why relaxation treatments designed to help people feel better can potentially cause more anxiety, said Hanjoo Kim, a graduate student in psychology. “People most vulnerable to relaxation-induced anxiety are often those with anxiety disorders who may need more relaxation than others,” Kim says. “And of course, these relaxation techniques were designed to help, not to make someone more anxious. Hopefully, our findings will serve as a cornerstone to provide better care for these populations.”
Researchers have known about relaxation-induced anxiety since the 1980s, but the specific cause of this phenomenon has remained unknown, according to Michelle Newman. When she developed a theory of contrast avoidance (the contrast avoidance theory) in 2011, she thought the two concepts might be related.
“The theory revolves around the idea that people may intentionally make themselves anxious in order to avoid the disappointment they might experience if something bad happened,” says Michelle Newman.
Relaxation and anxiety
As his recent work recently published in the Journal of Affective Disordersthe researchers recruited 96 students: 32 people with generalized anxiety disorder, 34 with major depressive disorder and 30 controls with no disorder.
When the participants arrived, the researchers offered them relaxation exercises before letting them watch videos that could evoke fear or sadness. They immediately answered a list of questions designed to measure their sensitivity to change based on their emotional state. Some people may, for example, feel uncomfortable with the negative emotions the videos elicit, while others may find the relaxation session helpful in dealing with the emotions.
Sensitive to emotional spikes
Then, the researchers took the participants to another relaxation session. They completed a second questionnaire to again measure the participants’ anxiety. After analyzing the data, the researchers found that people with generalized anxiety disorder were more likely to be sensitive to emotional spikes, such as going from feeling relaxed to feeling fearful or stressed. In addition, this anxiety-related sensitivity during sessions was intended to induce relaxation. Researchers found similar results in people with major depressive disorder, although the effect was not as strong.
Hanjoo Kim hopes the results will help clinicians provide better care for people with anxiety. “Measuring relaxation-induced anxiety and implementing techniques to educate ‘negative contrast’ sensitivity can help patients reduce this anxiety.” “In addition, it would be important to examine relaxation-induced anxiety in other disorders, such as panic disorder and persistent mild depression.”
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