What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a mental and physical reaction to perceived threats. In small doses, anxiety is helpful. Why? because it protects us from danger, but when anxiety is too high or happens too often, it can become debilitating.

Symptoms?

Excessive worry or nervousness

Poor concentration

Restlessness

Feeling irritable

Sleep problems

Increased heart-rate

Upset stomach

Muscle tension or aches and pains

Avoidance of fear

Easily fatigued

Recognizing Anxiety?

How you might think:

Worry about what might happen to you, or to the people you care about

Worries “ chaining” together to create increasing unlikely and catastrophic scenarios

Worry about worry

How you might feel:

Nervous

Anxious

Apprehensive

Tense Muscles

Tired and easily fatigued

How you might act:

Spend time worrying about things that might happen

Avoid situations where the outcome is uncertain

Spend time planning to prevent the bad outcomes from happening( attempts to reduce the uncertainty associated with a situation)

Seek reassurance

Over-planning & Over-preparing

Who does anxiety affect?

Women are 2x more likely to suffer from anxiety, but Anxiety can affect anyone of all ages and gender.

Treatment?

We can help treat anxiety through:

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: One of the most effective treatments CBT identifies unhealthy thinking patterns and then challenges or disrupts them.

Relaxation skills: Include various techniques such as deep breathing to create immediate relief from anxiety. With practice it becomes a skill to manage anxiety.

Exposure Therapy: A plan is created to face anxiety-producing situations, thus breaking the cycle of avoidance. Anxiety loses its power with enough exposure and the symptoms diminish.

Medication: Medication can help control the symptoms. But medication does not fix the problem of anxiety and the need of medication varies greatly case-by-case.