Personal Perspective

Anxiety

Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure. People with anxiety disorders usually have recurring intrusive thoughts or concerns. They may avoid certain situations out of worry. They may also have physical symptoms such as sweating, trembling, dizziness, or a rapid heartbeat.

There are different types of anxiety disorders: Generalized Anxiety Disorders, Panic Disorder, Phobias or Specific Phobia, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety Disorder, also called Social Phobia, Separation Anxiety Disorder, Risk Factors, Diagnosis, and Treatment. Generalized anxiety disorder involves persistent and excessive worry that interferes with daily activities. This ongoing worry and tension may be accompanied by physical symptoms such as restlessness, feeling on edge or easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension or problems sleeping. Worries about everyday things like job responsibilities, family health, or minor issues like chores, car repairs, or appointments are common. Panic Disorder: The core symptom of panic disorder is recurrent panic attacks, an overwhelming combination of physical and psychological distress. During an attack, several of these symptoms occur in combination: sweating, trembling or shaking, chest pain, feeling dizzy, light-headed or faint, feeling of choking, numbness or tingling, chills or hot flashes, abdominal pains, fear of losing control and fear of dying. Because the symptoms are so severe, many people who experience a panic attack may believe they are having a heart attack or other life-threatening illness. They may go to a hospital emergency department. Panic attacks may be expected, such as a response to a feared object, or unexpected, apparently occurring for no reason. The mean age for the onset of panic disorder is 20–24. Panic attacks may occur along with other mental disorders such as depression or PTSD. A specific phobia is an excessive and persistent fear of a specific object, situation, or activity that is generally not harmful. Patients know their fear is excessive, but they can't overcome it. These fears cause such distress that some people go to extreme lengths to avoid what they fear. Examples are public speaking, fear of flying, or fear of spiders. Agoraphobia is the fear of being in situations where escape may be difficult or embarrassing, or help might not be available in the event of panic symptoms. The fear is out of proportion to the actual situation and lasts, generally, six months or more and causes problems in functioning. A person with agoraphobia is afraid of using public transportation, being in open spaces, being in enclosed places, standing in line, being in a crowd, and being outside alone. The individual actively avoids the situation, requires a companion, or endures it with intense fear or anxiety. Untreated agoraphobia can become so serious that a person may be unable to leave the house. A person can only be diagnosed with agoraphobia if the fear is intensely upsetting or if it significantly interferes with normal daily activities. A person with social anxiety disorder has significant anxiety and discomfort about being embarrassed, humiliated, rejected, or looked down on in social interactions. People with this disorder will try to avoid the situation or endure it with great anxiety. Common examples are extreme fear of public speaking, meeting new people, or eating or drinking in public. The fear or anxiety causes problems with daily functioning and lasts at least six months. A person with separation anxiety disorder is excessively fearful or anxious about separation from those with whom he or she is attached. The feeling is beyond what is appropriate for the person's age, persists (at least four weeks in children and six months in adults), and causes problems functioning. A person with separation anxiety disorder may be persistently worried about losing the person closest to him or her, may be reluctant or refuse to go out or sleep away from home or without that person, or may experience nightmares about separation. Physical symptoms of distress often develop in childhood, but symptoms can persist through adulthood. Risk Factors: The causes of anxiety disorders are currently unknown but likely involve a combination of factors including genetic, environmental, psychological, and developmental. Anxiety disorders can run in families, suggesting that a combination of genes and environmental stress can produce the disorders.

Anxiety can affect many people, but most of them are students, having mental issues, being in a relationship or others. When students have anxiety and depression that goes unnoticed, their mental health is at risk, which can lead to social and behavioral problems, poor performance and learning, neglected hygiene, poor self-care practices, and low self-esteem. The "right" amount of anxiety can help us perform better and stimulate action and creativity. But there is another side to anxiety. Persistent anxiety causes real emotional distress and can lead to us becoming unwell and, at worst, developing anxiety disorders such as panic attacks, phobias, and obsessional behaviours. Those who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder may become overly dependent on their partner. This may include overthinking their relationship, fearing rejection, getting anxious if a partner does not respond quickly enough, and planning for the worst. Anxiety makes it harder to try new things, to take risks in your work or personal life, or sometimes even leave your house. Many people with anxiety feel caged in. They see things they want to do in life, but their anxiety keeps them from trying. This can lead to a loss of income and unfulfilled potential.

We all would have had some situations in our lives when we had been overly anxious. If we recall what actually happened, no doubt we would realize that at the time of the incident, we were not in control of ourselves. It would also probably be true that if we had kept cool instead of being anxious, we would have dealt with the situation in a better manner. There are some memories we have of people, perhaps of ourselves, who fared badly in a game or in a race because he was not cool. How about the footballer who missed the goal because he was anxious rather than cool, or the badminton player who lost because he was not cool or the man who failed his driving test because he was not cool ? These are common occurrences. The more serious ones are like when a person fails to get a job because he is not cool during an interview.

According to experts, a person is anxious because he is afraid that he might fail. Then he fails because he is anxious. This is a vicious circle. The solution seems to be that a person has a better chance of succeeding in anything if he is confident of success; since that confidence would keep him cool. To get to the bottom of this, it is necessary to see why a person is afraid to fail. The obvious answer seems to be that he has failed before in the same or in a similar situation and is afraid that it would happen again. The solution seems to be obvious: To cure the spell of anxiety, the person should not think of the times he failed but of the times he succeeded. This may not be as easy as it sounds.

The fact is that a person is anxious by habit and what needs curing is the habit itself. An excellent and practical technique has been suggested by some experts. In order to keep cool, a typically anxious person should list down all the failures (or lack of successes) in his life. For each of these he should find an area of success – preferably greater than the area of failure. For example. The footballer who is anxious whenever he is taking a penalty kick (probably because he had missed on other occasions), should think of the times when he had scored a really difficult goal. What happens is that he programs his mind to think of the successes he has had whenever the thought of failure comes to his mind. He uses the negative to trigger the positive. If he does this several times on his own, he will develop a positive attitude. As soon as he develops that, he is coolness itself. One question arises immediately : What if a person has never known success in the area he wants to ? The experts say that this is easily resolved. The same result can be achieved by just pretending the good experiences. It seems that the mind cannot tell the difference between a real experience and an imagined one. In other words, you will benefit by imagining good things happening to you.

Constant practice is necessary in order to keep cool. After continual practice – perhaps for a few months - a person becomes cool. It is assured by practitioners that keeping cool will give us a richer and better life.