The High Cost of Perpetual Vigilance

In working with students in classes or in individual appointments, I have observed the presence of a mental and behavioral habit that is disturbing sleep, producing or amplifying anxiety, stimulating over-thinking, and preventing true ease and relaxation. 

I’ve come to describe this habit as “perpetual vigilance.”

In doing research on this topic, the initial sources that appear relate to behavioral ecology in animals, in terms of predators vs. foragers. Vigilance on the part of the foragers increases dramatically under conditions of high predation, and this carries a cost in terms of restricted feeding. What happens is that the foragers experience distress and are unable to eat sufficiently when they experience continual threat.

When we map this observation from behavioral ecology onto human behavior, we can see that this adaptive function, which serves the purpose of self-preservation in animals, can manifest in humans as “maladaptive when conducted excessively.”

The human body/mind can often slide into the habit of “anticipatory vigilance” where there may be “excessive anticipatory responding under conditions of threat uncertainty.” So while there isn’t a real lion stalking us, there is still real fear: for our psychological and emotional safety, as perceived through the fear of threat. This can feel just as dangerous as impending physical harm, and can produce not only stress reactivity in a moment of crisis but also a foreboding feeling of perpetual vigilance, a persistent readiness to fight, flee, or freeze, “just in case.”

Put another way, the frequency and intensity of fear responses to clear and imminent physical threat can lag far behind the amount of fear responses to the anticipation of such events. Hence, the “perpetual vigilance” that seems to be distressing many of us. In this perpetually vigilant state, activity in the sympathetic nervous system—where levels of cortisol and adrenalin are elevated, heart rate increases, and breathing is shallow—predominates, and prevents rest, sound sleep, or a peaceful mind.

Interestingly enough, most humans (at least in the West) tend to overeat, rather than under-eat, when feeling perceived threat. We can also experience disturbances in our sleep, where a sense of vigilance may create difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep. We can feel plagued by excessive thinking about the perception of anticipated threats that can spiral out of control into a sense of overwhelm; or feel unable to truly relax and let go of our concerns, even on the weekends or while on vacation.

And all of these behaviors are tied to the perception of anticipated threat, not to an actual threat itself. They are future-focused, anticipating events that have not occurred (and may never occur).

So how best to counteract this tendency? It is a habit, after all, and as such can be unlearned and replaced by another, healthier habit. In order to do this, it is certainly beneficial to reflect on one’s own behavior, and perform self-inquiry, either on one’s own or with the guidance of a therapist, exploring the genesis of such mind/body habits in one’s personal history.

It can also be very powerful and effective, once this behavior is noticed and acknowledged, to alleviate the suffering it causes through somatic (body-based) practices. Mindfulness meditation, yoga, and nature awareness practice are just some of the myriad modalities that can help retrain the body/mind and re-regulate the activity in the autonomous nervous system between the sympathetic and parasympathetic functions. Once the parasympathetic system is back online, sleep can improve; anxiety can be reduced; the tempo of thought can lessen and the contents of thought can be mitigated; and finally, true rest and relaxation can be allowed for and enjoyed.

And, once learned, somatic practices reside in the body (through the process of embodiment), where they will naturally arise as antidotes to anxious thinking and perpetual vigilance. Thus new healthy habits will supplant those that previously caused distress. Acquiring new habits is a process, to be sure; in this case the payoff can be quite dramatic and expansive over time. The most significant first step in the process is to realize deeply that perpetual vigilance is simply a habit of mind.

Sources
Uncertainty and Anticipation in Anxiety: An integrated neurobiological and psychological perspective
Dan W. Grupe and Jack B. Nitschke. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2014

A Simple Rule for the Costs of Vigilance: Empirical Evidence from a Social Forager

Guy Cowlishaw, Michael J. Lawes, Margaret Lightbody, Alison Martin, Richard Pettifor and J. Marcus Rowcliffe. Proceedings: Biological Sciences, 2004