Top-down vs bottom-up anxiety

The present moment is the only time we have where we can actually get things done. After all, the past is gone and the future doesn’t exist yet, right?

The thing is, I sometimes find my present so plagued by noise — the stress, the overthinking, the anxiety — that I find myself unable to be productive and get anything done.

I end up in the dreaded red zone, where the amount of stress pushes me outside of the optimal zone of being able to function well and into the dysfunctional, high anxiety zone:

In order to reverse from the red zone into the green zone, both top-down and bottom-up strategies are really useful to calm down and get back on track.

So what do top-down and bottom-up actually mean?

Top-down processes are initiated from within. They are a highly cognitive process — that is, voluntary, chosen and controlled.

Top-down decisions and choices draw on past experiences, expectations or projections. Basically it is anything that you choose to do. For example, deciding what to have for lunch, writing an essay, choosing who you’re going to send a message to or grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. The idea is conceived in your mind, then a message is sent to your extremities to follow through — ie. top-down.

Bottom-up refers to things that are triggered reflexively or without conscious choice. They utilise incoming sensory data, the things you feel, taste, smell, see and hear.

Bottom-up processes and reactions happen in real time and in the present moment, driven by our immediate surrounding environment. Things like withdrawing your foot after stepping on a sharp stone, turning your head to a sudden noise, scratching an itch or taking the next step up a flight of stairs. In these cases, something has occurred to the extremities or senses of the body, and then the message is sent up to the brain via the spinal cord or visual or auditory cortex, ie. bottom-up.

So then, how do you use this knowledge to be able to calm yourself down, decrease overthinking or try to settle feelings of anxiety?

The first step is understanding when to choose a top-down strategy vs choosing bottom-up strategy.

If you have the bandwidth to be able to sit, focus and concentrate for a few minutes, then choose a top-down strategy. If doing that feels too impossible and insurmountable, then definitely go for a bottom-up strategy first to try and take some of the edge off, then following up with a top-down strategy [like a a one-two punch combination].

Bottom-up Strategies

In essence, these strategies all take advantage of the fact that our bodies are terrible at multi-tasking. By distracting ourselves or increasing the stimulation to certain parts of our senses, it quite literally makes it hard for our brains to focus on our worries and concerns. These things are all very simple, but they can help make the problem seem farther away and give back the feeling of control again.

1. Go for a walk. The continual movement and changing sounds around you, plus the likelihood that if you go for a walk you will get outside for a bit can combat negative emotions. If you’re interested you can learn more about the reasoning behind why it works here.

2. Jump in the water and go for a swim. Especially in cold water!

3. Watch a calming video. It could be anything from cooking, to ASMR to cute puppies. The main trick here is to set a timer to make sure you don’t go down the rabbit hole for longer than you want to, but this absolutely works in distracting your mind and works when used in the right way.

4. Get a massage. If you can get a professional one or just convince your housemate to do a 5 minute massage exchange, the physical touch is a strong type of input for your mind to really bring you into the present moment as well as increasing the positive hormone levels of dopamine and serotonin.

5. Listen to music. Choose a few songs you really like that make you feel happy and turn it up a little louder than normal.

Top-down Strategies

These are the ones to use if you feel like you can focus and concentrate enough to be able to engage with them. In particular, these strategies are active forms of trying to control your thoughts and your mind. The more you practice, the better you will get just like building up a physical muscle at the gym.

1. Meditate. Many people find meditation really challenging or think that they are doing it “wrong”. The core purpose of meditation is to become more peaceful, focussed and more aware. When your mind wanders, to make the choice to bring it back again. You can just focus on your breathing or there are many guided meditation tracks you can listen to online.

2. State three good things that have happened to you today or 3 things you are grateful for. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. Similarly to the previous point, this strategy utilises conscious choice to put ourselves into a better frame of mind by recognising some of the good things around us. The more we utilise positive pathways around the brain, the stronger they get. [Sidenote: if you repeat this exercise every day for 6 months, the evidence shows that people are on average 9% happier!]

3. The 5–4–3–2–1 Technique. In the environment around you, acknowledge 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste. The point of this exercise is to purposefully bring your attention to all of the senses in order to ground yourself to the present moment where you are in a safe place.

4. List the reasons why you will be successful at your next task for two minutes. Our brains have been proven to perform best when we are in a positive frame of mind, and priming ourselves like this literally makes it more likely that we will succeed and perform better than we would have if we did prime ourselves positively right beforehand.

Hopefully these can provide a jumping off point for you to develop your own toolkit of bottom-up and top-down strategies that you can use wherever and whenever you might need to, and the power to recognise when one might be more beneficial than another.

Wishing you all the best with your own journey of managing stress, anxiety and getting into a better state of mind day to day!