ANXIETY & OVERTHINKING
WHEN THOUGHTS KEEP TURNING
Anxiety is a signal. Not a sentence.
WHEN THOUGHTS KEEP TURNING
ANXIETY & OVERTHINKING
Anxiety is a signal. Not a sentence.
Everyone feels it. Anxiety is the body’s way of saying, “Something matters.” It becomes overwhelming when we start fearing the feeling itself. Here, we learn to listen differently and find steady ground again.
THE IMPACT OF ANXIETY
NO MIND SHOULD LIVE AT FULL VOLUME.
It’s Thursday evening in Lincoln Park. Evan walks his Aussie doodle past the skyline, gold light bouncing off glass.
He looks composed and capable, until a small worry flickers. A new parking garage, a code he might forget. The tension in his chest isn’t about parking; it’s the old fear of doing something wrong and being blamed.
Anxiety shows up through the body, the mind, and behavior. Knowing how each part works can help you notice what’s actually happening instead of feeling lost in it.
LIVING WITH ANXIETY IS BALANCING ACT OF BEARING DISCOMFORT AND TAKING ACTION
ANATOMY OF ANXIETY
PHYSICAL
Your body sounds the first alarm. You notice a tight chest, shallow breath, racing heart. These sensations are old survival systems doing their job.
COGNITIVE
Thoughts start spinning. The mind predicts, plans, and rehearses, searching for safety through control.
BEHAVIORAL
You react. Maybe you avoid, overprepare, scroll, or shut down. The pattern reinforces itself until awareness breaks the loop.
What This Experience Looks Like
For Evan, anxiety doesn’t crash in like a storm; it hums quietly underneath the day. It shows up in small hesitations—rereading an email before he hits send, checking his calendar twice before leaving the office, wondering if his friends are pulling away or just busy. It’s not constant panic; it’s a soft vigilance that never quite turns off.
He’s not alone. Many people I work with describe that same background hum—restlessness, irritability, overcommitment, or that faint dread that follows them into every room. It’s the body asking for safety in a world that keeps demanding more performance.
For many LGBTQ+ people, that hum carries an extra frequency. Chronic exposure to stigma, misgendering, and public hostility trains the body to expect threat even in quiet moments. Anxiety becomes the static that forms around vigilance.
In our work, we name those forces and treat them as part of the problem, not a personal failure. Practically, that means validating the social realities that shape nervous-system responses, building body-first regulation skills that reduce arousal, and co-designing strategies to restore safety in relationships and environments.