We all know that during our evolution fear was not always a bad thing, as it warns us when something was getting dangerous, it is our inherent alarm system.
Fears are normal feelings in our life, we are used to them from an early age and being a little anxious from time to time is part of our normal development.
But what happens when “from time to time” becomes everytime and “little anxious” becomes an overwhelming, confusing anxiety?
Well, fear is becoming a disorder and from this point we are talking about the most common psychiatric illness.
Anxiety is making a real terrible mess around the world, it is estimated that 10 to 15% of the population is affected by anxiety disorders and it can give you physical illness too like dizziness, tremors, sweating and palpitations.
Whoever experienced any symptoms of anxiety need to seek support early because there is only one step to other complicated disorders or depression experiences.
These are the most common types of anxiety:
- Generalized anxiety disorder: persistent and excessive worry about everything, wildly concerned about family, work and find it very difficult to control it.
- Social anxiety: afraid of talking, walking, eating in public, fear of being underestimated or humiliated also in public. As the name already tell us it means being afraid to socialize.
- Specific phobias: a particular object, little things or situations that cause a fearful feeling,like heights, new places or elevators.
- Panic disorders: spontaneous uncontrollable anxiety feelings mixed with a range of physical symptoms like chest pain, dizziness and hard breathing.
Many of these can be avoided and so luckily phobias are easier to control.
And other types of disorders which are more complicated and where anxiety is present:
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Causes and prevention
Anxiety is a serious condition that makes it difficult for one to manage his daily life. When those fearful feelings won’t go away and seem to happen without any reason, you can be sure it’s anxiety.
An anxiety condition isn’t developed or caused by a single factor but a blend of them, like personality factors, parts of your difficult life experiences and of course physical health.
Let’s take these aspects one by one and understand the meaning of anxiety, recognize it and how can we prevent it for ourselves and others.
Your personality can be a very influential factor in any anxiety disorder and it may begin at an early age.
With one usually being shy, with a lack of self-esteem or being perfectionist and wanting to control everything, all these slowly changing over time into endless linger negative feelings on which you will lose control.
Genetic history of mental health conditions which runs in a family can also cause a predisposition towards anxiety.
However this doesn’t mean that a person with family members whom experienced a disorder must develop one themselves.
Common triggers of anxiety when you are living a stressful life full of tense events (external factors) are:
- Working under stress
- Changing you job too often
- Chaotic life
- Bad social and family relationships
- Use of drugs
- Side effects of medications
- Financial stress
Some physical health problems can simulate anxiety for example an hyperactive thyroid, others chronic health conditions that are associated in many ways with anxiety are: asthma, heart diseases,diabetes and hypertension.
Trying to prevent fear from becoming an illness can get really slippy if the person doesn’t realize that feeling insecure and overstressed is not ok.
Having a false sense that you can solve and control what you are living can slow down your recovery, one that usually needs specialized support.
And most important do not try and use alcohol or other substances that may manage anxiety conditions for the moment.
Because in fact you are just painting it and making a real progress in increasing your anxiety and be more likely to develop an addiction for drugs and alcohol which go hand in hand.
Remember that anxiety comes in so many different forms, influenced by so many aspects and it’s so easy for us to develop a disorder, especially with our daily stressful life.
Though everybody can get help really fast nowadays and have access to so much information about everything, i think that is better to prevent things before they are out of your control.
So here are a few tips on how you can minimize symptoms of everyday stress and avoid being grumpy:
- Take care of your mind and body by eating healthy and thinking lovely
- Take some time being alone with yourself and reward yourself
- Have some limits in the morning and try to drink only a cup of coffee
- Limits an sugar and alcohol
- Take a pause from time to time of doing things that doesn’t relax you( there are others on the planet too)
- Keep a journal of your everyday experience of any kind, just to remind yourself that you are interesting.
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