What is Anxiety?
Worry is an emotion that everyone experiences from time to time, especially in the face of known stressors such as financial difficulties, employment-related issues, relationship troubles, major life events (positive and negative ones) and a concern for the well-being of one’s loved ones. These are normal human reactions, but sometimes they can engulf a person and affect their functioning in daily life.
When such normal worries become excessive and plague a person in a chronic, ongoing manner, the person may be suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Typically one has difficulty controlling the worry, which affects the person in the following manner: a person may constantly feel restless and on the edge and may present with irritability. Sleep disturbance, fatigue and muscle tension may be further symptoms. Cognitively a person may have difficulty concentrating and often feel that their mind goes blank.
Normal worry patterns often serve as motivators for most people. Not wanting to fail a test or perform well in a valued activity such as a sporting or public speaking event are examples. Slight anxiety about an upcoming challenge is fairly normal. This ensures that the individual involves gives their best shot. However this anxiety can range from moderately severe to so severe that it hinders performance and affects a person’s ability to reason and make sound decisions. This can possibly disable a person to the extent that they are not able to partake in tasks of daily living such as driving a car, taking public transport, appearing in public or visiting friends. Obsessive fear can seriously disrupt a person’s daily life.
When anxiety gets out of control, to the extent that it causes phobias and panic attacks, a person’s life can become highly uncomfortable and saturated by feelings of fear and dread. Phobias are specific, examples being fear of heights, spiders, driving, of people and social situations and many more. Exposure to the feared object or situation may leave a person feeling paralysed with fear.
A panic attack is a distinct period (generally about ten minutes) of intense fear that overwhelms a person rather suddenly. Although any strong fear and anxiety causes uncomfortable physiological sensations of terror a person suffering from a panic attack would have a greater number of symptoms (at least four of those listed below) during such an attack.
· Difficulty breathing
· Feelings of being choked or smothered
· Increased heart rate
· Chest pains or discomfort
· Stomach ache or nausea
· Numbness or a tingling sensations on the skin
· Sweating
· Chills or hot flushes
· Shaking/trembling and/or dizziness, unsteadiness and light-headedness
· Derealization (feeling the world around you is unreal) or depersonalization (feeling that you are unreal)
· Fear of losing control or going crazy and/or fear of dying
The degree of anxiety that can be coped with varies from person to person, but recognition that anxiety and fear is constricting one’s life is an important indicator that your anxiety is out of hand. At different points of our life we may be able to cope with different stressors differently and cope with different degrees of anxiety.
Anxiety is an unpleasant emotion which indicates that we are feeling threatened in some way or the other, although the source of the threat may not always be clear to us. The texture of one’s anxiety may differ from that experienced by others. It may presents as just mild uneasiness, feeling unsettled and disquiet. Slightly stronger manifestation may be feelings of apprehension, being unnerved and troubled. An individual may be filled with dread, terror and acute distress. One may even oscillate between these degrees over periods of time. Anxiety may manifest as a more diffuse state of alarm which could last from between less than an hour to days, or weeks. Panic states are often much more intense, but of shorter duration (although not necessarily). A person may have these anxiety attacks infrequently or it may be a more chronic condition, for which treatment is absolutely necessary. A combination of medication and psychotherapy is often the best approach.
Most people have minor fears of some which do not lead to total avoidance of the situation which elicited the fear. These can often be overcome easily by knowing more about the situation. Each person’s trigger for their anxiety is different and it may not always be clear what triggered an anxiety state within oneself. Examining some of the thoughts that may have contributed to this state, if it is not an external situation, may be helpful. Even then finding a direct cause is not always possible as a myriad of factors could have contributed to anxiety manifesting at any particular moment in time.
At times a person may be plagued by intrusive and persistent thoughts or images that cause severe distress and anxiety. These are called obsessions. These thoughts are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems and while the person concerned may recognise that these are indeed their own thoughts, they have no control over them. Endless ongoing attempts may be made to suppress or ignore these thoughts or neutralise them with specific behaviours or mental acts called compulsions.
When such normal worries become excessive and plague a person in a chronic, ongoing manner, the person may be suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Typically one has difficulty controlling the worry, which affects the person in the following manner: a person may constantly feel restless and on the edge and may present with irritability. Sleep disturbance, fatigue and muscle tension may be further symptoms. Cognitively a person may have difficulty concentrating and often feel that their mind goes blank.
Normal worry patterns often serve as motivators for most people. Not wanting to fail a test or perform well in a valued activity such as a sporting or public speaking event are examples. Slight anxiety about an upcoming challenge is fairly normal. This ensures that the individual involves gives their best shot. However this anxiety can range from moderately severe to so severe that it hinders performance and affects a person’s ability to reason and make sound decisions. This can possibly disable a person to the extent that they are not able to partake in tasks of daily living such as driving a car, taking public transport, appearing in public or visiting friends. Obsessive fear can seriously disrupt a person’s daily life.
When anxiety gets out of control, to the extent that it causes phobias and panic attacks, a person’s life can become highly uncomfortable and saturated by feelings of fear and dread. Phobias are specific, examples being fear of heights, spiders, driving, of people and social situations and many more. Exposure to the feared object or situation may leave a person feeling paralysed with fear.
A panic attack is a distinct period (generally about ten minutes) of intense fear that overwhelms a person rather suddenly. Although any strong fear and anxiety causes uncomfortable physiological sensations of terror a person suffering from a panic attack would have a greater number of symptoms (at least four of those listed below) during such an attack.
· Difficulty breathing
· Feelings of being choked or smothered
· Increased heart rate
· Chest pains or discomfort
· Stomach ache or nausea
· Numbness or a tingling sensations on the skin
· Sweating
· Chills or hot flushes
· Shaking/trembling and/or dizziness, unsteadiness and light-headedness
· Derealization (feeling the world around you is unreal) or depersonalization (feeling that you are unreal)
· Fear of losing control or going crazy and/or fear of dying
The degree of anxiety that can be coped with varies from person to person, but recognition that anxiety and fear is constricting one’s life is an important indicator that your anxiety is out of hand. At different points of our life we may be able to cope with different stressors differently and cope with different degrees of anxiety.
Anxiety is an unpleasant emotion which indicates that we are feeling threatened in some way or the other, although the source of the threat may not always be clear to us. The texture of one’s anxiety may differ from that experienced by others. It may presents as just mild uneasiness, feeling unsettled and disquiet. Slightly stronger manifestation may be feelings of apprehension, being unnerved and troubled. An individual may be filled with dread, terror and acute distress. One may even oscillate between these degrees over periods of time. Anxiety may manifest as a more diffuse state of alarm which could last from between less than an hour to days, or weeks. Panic states are often much more intense, but of shorter duration (although not necessarily). A person may have these anxiety attacks infrequently or it may be a more chronic condition, for which treatment is absolutely necessary. A combination of medication and psychotherapy is often the best approach.
Most people have minor fears of some which do not lead to total avoidance of the situation which elicited the fear. These can often be overcome easily by knowing more about the situation. Each person’s trigger for their anxiety is different and it may not always be clear what triggered an anxiety state within oneself. Examining some of the thoughts that may have contributed to this state, if it is not an external situation, may be helpful. Even then finding a direct cause is not always possible as a myriad of factors could have contributed to anxiety manifesting at any particular moment in time.
At times a person may be plagued by intrusive and persistent thoughts or images that cause severe distress and anxiety. These are called obsessions. These thoughts are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems and while the person concerned may recognise that these are indeed their own thoughts, they have no control over them. Endless ongoing attempts may be made to suppress or ignore these thoughts or neutralise them with specific behaviours or mental acts called compulsions.
