What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a vague unpleasant emotion that is experienced in anticipation of some usually ill-defined misfortune. A relatively permanent state of worry and nervousness occurring in a variety of mental disorders, usually accompanied by compulsive behavior or attacks of panic. An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness or concern about some uncertain event; an uneasy or distressing desire (for something); a state of restlessness and agitation, often accompanied by a distressing sense of oppression or tightness in the stomach.

Anxiety is a normal reaction. Anxiety is concern when it is under control. It may help a person to deal with a difficult situation. When anxiety becomes out of control i.e. excessive concern, it may turn into a disorder.

“If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.” – Dean Smith

Symptoms

Anxiety can cause heart palpitations, fatigue, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, stomach aches, or headaches. External signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupillary dilation. Someone suffering from anxiety might also experience it as a sense of dread or panic.

Although panic attacks are not experienced by every anxiety sufferer, they are common symptoms. Panic attack usually comes without warning and although the fear experienced is generally irrational, the perception of danger is very real. A person experiencing a panic attack will often feel as if he or she is about to die or pass out.

“A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work.” – John Lubbock

Anxiety does not only consist of physical symptoms. There are many emotional symptoms involved as well. Some of them include: “Feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching (and waiting) for signs (and occurrences) or danger and feeling like your mind’s gone blank.”. There’s also, “nightmares/bad dreams, obsessions about sensations, déjà vu, a trapped in your mind feeling, and feeling like everything is scary.”

One of the most common symptoms of anxiety is fear, which includes the fear of dying. You feel an intense fear when you think of dying, or you may think of it more often than normal, or can’t get it out of your mind.”

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” – Leo Buscaglia

Steps to overcome anxiety:

Identify and note down your anxiety: First of all, take a deep breath and relax. Then identify your feelings. Write down your awful sad feelings and all concerns that bother you in points. Just let it all come out.

Recognize the cause of your anxiety: From the list take out the first points, now identify the cause and note it down. Then move on to the next point and so on. At the end you have successfully identified the all causes for you anxiety. As you have discovered the reasons for your tension, you have won half of the battle.

Categorize and decide a timeline: Now as you have successfully identified the reasons, its time to find solutions. Before gathering thoughts for finding out resolution, prioritize the reasons and decide a timeline for working on each one of them. Separate the reasons that you can resolve by yourself, from the ones for which you will need support from others. Prepare a well sort-out plan for the issues which can be resolved by you without taking help from others and start working on that plan.

Share your problems: At certain times you may require help from someone. What you may need to do is discuss your problem with a friend. This would not just unburden you but involve your friend in checking the way out. So don’t be shy when it’s comes to asking for help.

Exercise: Include some sort of exercise in your daily routine. Daily going for a morning walk or jogging or any other sport that you like can help. Light exercise in morning relaxes you senses, removes the tension from your mind and body. Meditation and yoga helps you to calm your nerves and chalks out all the stress. As a child, we were fit, active and ready to take on the world. But as we grew old, we became so concerned about our future that we have forgotten we live in present. Remember if you are fit today you can enjoy your tomorrow. But if you will not take care of yourself today, then you may not live to see tomorrow.

Divert yourself: Whenever you start to experience a state of anxiety, get off from chair and do some activity to divert your thoughts from anxiety. Check out some latest movies or listen to your favorite music. Being involved in them could take your mind away from tensions and provide you time to compose yourself. Even your favorite T.V. show can click. You never know. Even some T.V show can spell out the perfect answers to all your questions.

Accept the worst: Remember you can change what is in your control. You can not drive the things that are not under your control, in the way you want. Whenever you are in a state of anxiety, accept the worst that you may have to face. When you accept the worst, the fear of the worst reduces and you feel more relaxed so as to find a solution for your anxiety.

“Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.” – Walter Anderson

No related posts.