How often you found yourself slightly out of balance, rethinking and overanalyzing about an event and looking at the things in the worst-case scenario? 

Your mind is racing at a full speed, and your nerves are buzzing. Your stomach is churning and you are afraid of what if something bad happens?

Yes…feeling anxious is a common experience for all of us. If you were asked to recall the last time you felt anxious, undoubtedly you wouldn’t have to look back very far.

Perhaps many people experience this pretty mysterious emotion on a regular basis. For some of us, these feelings are so disabling that impacts overall quality of life.

Understanding anxiety

Anxiety is a natural response to stress or danger, especially in challenging or threatening situation. Anxiety is characterized by constant feelings of fear, worry and nervousness. 

What do you mean by this?

It means anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness to potentially harmful events.

Does this means potential harmful event is really going to happen?

Not really…

For instance it’s natural to feel nervous while giving stage performance where you get concerned about outcome. It might cause you to sweat, feel restless and tense. And have a rapid heartbeat. However, this nervousness is short-term and you will get back to normal mood once the performance is over.

But many people experience similar kind of nervousness in day to day life too. With a thought of “what if something goes wrong in the future ?”, they just expect possibility of worst-case scenarios. 

In short, anxiety is person’s specific reaction to stress that is characterized by persistent feeling of apprehension or dread in situations that are about to happen or might happen or might go wrong.

In fact, you may be stressed out about so many things in so many ways that are either not actually threatening or not happening in reality. 

Impact of anxiety on mental health

Although experiencing anxiety is common in everyday situations, it causes significant distress when largely affects thoughts, feelings and behavior. When anxiety is severe, the feelings of helplessness, confusion and extreme worry are out of proportion with actual seriousness of an event.

Heightened anxiety can impact the ability to conduct daily task and lead to functional impairment in various areas of life. 

If left unaddressed, persistent anxiety can disturb important activities of daily living and negatively impact person’s quality of life in various ways.

Persistent anxiety hamper productivity at workplace due to poor concentration. Reduction in performance can discourage you from taking bold steps due to irrational fears. Paralyzing effect on thought process may limit quality of ideas and creativity. A feeling of uneasiness subsequently withdraw you from social circle including friends, family. Even you hesitate to visit places and situation because of fear.

This subsequently leads to health complications in the form of high blood pressure and heart diseases, frequent pains and aches due to muscle tension, poor appetite due to digestive problems, fatigue due to sleep disturbances, poor appetite and overthinking.

When experienced regularly, anxiety can transform into a clinical entity called anxiety disorder that can affects your mental well-being. 

Making pace with feelings and situation

Anxiety is a future oriented state of mind where person always experience a sense of what if something bad happens in the future and therefore, future doesn’t look bright.

Anxiety resolves on its own only if the underlaying cause is addressed or if person take control of the situation. Changing your thinking patterns and the way you react to anxiety provoking situations help to cope with anxiety to some extent. 

Whenever an anxiety-provoking thoughts come to your mind, observe the pattern of your thoughts. 

All intrusive thoughts coming to your mind are not real. Some are excessive worry about the future and some are just reflection of your past experiences.

Don’t try to address, fix, argue or believe on these thoughts at that moment. Let these thoughts come and go without giving much importance to them.

Your restlessness may be the development related to particular happenings. Once you identified a root cause for your anxiety, try to find out the possible solutions for your problem. If you can handle the situation, let’s give a try for it. Be proactive in your approach and take action towards changing things which lie under your control.

If the situation is out of your control, then there is no point thinking so much about it. 99% of what you worry about never happens, and much of the 1% is beyond your control.

Also Check : Transforming Anxiety Into Hope

When to see expert

If anxiety is interrupting with your daily life and affecting your work or relationships, it makes sense to see mental health care experts. When anxiety is getting worse and self-help techniques are not working, professional help do wonders.

Timely and accurate detection of anxiety helps to initiate adequate treatment in the form of psychotherapy and psychoactive medications. 

And finally remember that your thoughts are not always facts.

Disclaimer 

Mediclin Brain Health’s content is for informational and educational purposes only. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.