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Anxiety is hands down one of the most common mental health disorders there is. Its estimated that 62% of adults will experience some degree of anxiety and 31% will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Even before the pandemic, anxiety was one of the most common reasons people sought out therapy but after COVID, anxiety has only risen more.
What is anxiety exactly? Anxiety is the body’s response to danger which includes both worry and fear. However, anxiety is complicated and can present differently in each of us. There are many forms of anxiety from generalized anxiety to phobias to PTSD.
The feeling of anxiety that we experience is produced by our central nervous system. The pre-frontal cortex (the decision-making part of your brain) determines if there’s a threat and then activates an amygdala response which tells the hypothalamus to initiate fight-or-flight reactions. This causes stimulation of our nervous system throughout the body and a flood of hormones and other chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol. It also causes other, unnecessary, parts of the body to shut down including our prefrontal cortex, digestion, and reproductive organs. It’s important to point out that the prefrontal cortex starts to shut down during this response - meaning the part of the brain that controls decision making, planning, judgement, and other executive functions is essentially offline. You are operating on fear and instinct. Everything your body is doing during an anxious response is to prime you to fight or flee so that you can survive. Pretty cool huh?
It is cool, unless you’re one of the 264 million adults around the world who struggle with one of the anxiety disorders. For these folks, their nervous system can be triggered by things that aren’t actually dangerous like a loud sound, being late for work, or public speaking. This is also true for folks who experience traumatic events and is the beginning of PTSD.
Anxiety symptoms differ for each individual but include things like racing heart, difficulties breathing, flushed/pale skin, muscle tension, and even irritability. You can also see anxiety in things like obsessive cleaning or working out, phobias, or panic attacks. Causes of anxiety disorders also differ depending on the individual and can include things like family patterns, trauma, stress, or normal life changes.
Anxiety is normal. All of us will experience some form of danger and subsequent anxiety on and off throughout our life. In its healthiest form, anxiety is nothing but the body’s built-in warning system. Anxiety, like our other emotions, are there to give us clues about the people and places we find ourselves interacting with. Is someone bad news for us or possibly putting us into a dangerous situation? It’s our anxiety that will let us know.
So how can you tell the difference between normal anxiety and an anxiety disorder that needs possible treatment? The answer lies in your functioning. Anxiety starts to change from a normal experience to a disorder when it starts to impact your functioning in any life areas including at home, with loved ones, or at work. It’s good to reflect on the ways that your anxiety is impacting you in the various areas of your life. If it’s making it hard for you to live up to the roles and responsibilities that you have, it’s probably time to get some help.
Another way to assess your anxiety level is to to take an actual screening for anxiety. I recommend the GAD-7 which I use in my therapy practice to assess levels of anxiety during the treatment process. This is a short questionnaire that is easy to take and easy to score and can give you an idea of just how bad your anxiety actually is. It is supposed to be administered by a professional so make sure if the results concern you that you follow up with your primary care doctor or a therapist.
If you’re questioning how bad your anxiety is, it probably won’t hurt to go talk to a professional. Therapists are trained and skilled at diagnosing mental health disorders and can help you differentiate between normal emotional changes and a mental health disorder. They can also help you build the skills to prevent normal emotional changes from turning into a mental health disorder. It’s usually easier to prevent a problem than to fix it once it’s started.
Anxiety is a universal human experience but can get out of control and start to hurt us in one, or multiple, areas of our life. That’s when we know it’s time to seek professional support. The good news is that because anxiety is so common there are a lot of options to treat and manage it more effectively. You CAN overcome this and can get back to feeling like yourself.
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