Why Generalized Anxiety Happens: The VitaModo Method’s View

Generalized anxiety is not “too many thoughts” — it is a stuck bodily response. Dr. Saulitis stresses that this state shows itself not so much on the cognitive, mental level as on the muscular and bodily one. To understand why it arises is to see the mechanism of a fear response getting stuck.

Fear that got stuck

Normally fear answers a trigger. A threat appears — the response switches on; the threat passes — it switches off. In a disorder the trigger is already gone, yet the fear hormones keep working. The response is stuck: the anxiety “button” turned on and won’t turn off.

“Fear gets stuck, there is no trigger, but fear — these hormones — are still working; that is when we speak of a fear disorder.”

Why the response won’t switch off

The doctor names several causes of this “sticking”:

• A trigger that is too strong. An earthquake, war, fire, the death of relatives — something extraordinary strikes the brain like a powerful charge. The center that takes the blow becomes overexcited, the rest of the brain effectively “shuts it down” to keep the toxic effect from spreading, and awareness loops onto this one experience.
• A weak nervous system. The doctor compares it to a car alarm: tuned normally it reacts at 30 centimeters; too sensitive, it reacts at 3–5 meters and goes off at background noise. Then a background stimulus is read by the brain as danger, and the avoidance response fires again and again.
• The brain’s “software” works poorly. Inborn traits, immaturity and infantilism, aging and regression, toxic effects — all of this impairs recognizing stimuli. The brain becomes undiscriminating and can no longer “switch off”: the “all-clear” button stays stuck.

Why prolonged tension is dangerous

A person cannot live long in such a battle-ready, tense state. The doctor lists what happens to the body: an excess of dopamine and other substances, tensed muscles, constricted vessels, water retention, increased blood clotting. Hence heightened reactivity (asthma, allergy, rheumatism), the risk of stroke and heart attack with high blood pressure and pulse, vulnerability to infections and cancer, because the immune system is overstrained and the body lacks energy for these tasks. Recovery halts: metabolic waste is not cleared, there is no time for sleep and rest — the body is always “ready for battle.”

Anxiety as a reaction to probability

A key point of the method: with stuck fear there is no actual trigger yet — only a supposition, an opinion, a probability — and the body already reacts as if it were real. “A snake under the sofa,” “tomorrow you’ll be fired” — these are merely probabilities, but they are interpreted in advance as bad, and the body answers with avoidance.

“If a person reacts only to an opinion, to a supposition, to a probability — that is the very definition of delusion.”

It may be an illusion, or an induced, “hypnotized” state: someone — friends, parents, relatives — said what to fear, and the avoidance response fires by itself.

When culture feeds the anxiety

The doctor separately shows how the sticking is fed from outside — through induced states. A person is “bombarded” with content full of threat, hatred, a sharpened sense of justice, a black-and-white split into heroes and those one “must hate.” Such people’s activity is counterproductive, they are withdrawn, sleep is disturbed, there is no connection to the future. The doctor deliberately “breaks the templates” — reminding us that the wolf has its own truth and the hare has its own — to sober the person up and lead them out of the induced state.

Practice: how to ease stuck fear

Following the logic of the doctor’s method:

1. Flush out the neurochemistry through the body. Just as after alcohol you must “sober up” with movement and water, here too: manageable physical activity attuned to your body, plus plenty of fluids, helps clear the substances driving the fear response.
2. Strengthen the nervous system. The same basic principles: physical activity, quality sleep, proper food, meaningful informational activities.
3. Separate yourself from the reaction. The doctor teaches: fear is like pain in a leg or a tooth. A toothache is not you. Between the avoidance reaction itself and the essence of the person there is nothing in common.
4. Argue with the fear. Become aware of the reaction’s mental content and dispute it, remembering that the brain shows a “picture of real life” depending on which neurochemistry dominates.
5. Get checked by a specialist. It is important to rule out specific disorders and to treat general illnesses, since any illness indirectly worsens neuron function and feeds the sticking of fear.