Much like any type of mental or physical condition, there are certain symptoms and effects that determine each one. Here are the most common ones that are associated with Anxiety and how to act on them.
1. Your rational brain:
Whenever you feel like you are going to be overcome with anxiety, that’s when your amygdala is going to react by sending chemicals to the front lobe of your head, which is made up by your rational brain, and shut it down completely.
2.Anxiety and the future:
Anxiety can come in different forms -generalised anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder- that are accompanied by different symptoms -worry, somatic symptoms, knots in your stomach, restlessness- and they are usually centred around concerns involving the future.
3. Rational or Irrational:
Rational Anxiety comes from real issues -the thought of an upcoming job interview, your partner not answering your calls about picking up your kids- and it is usually deemed as a perfectly normal reaction. Irrational Anxiety is… irrational. It tends to look more like -the interview will go badly, you will never get the job, in fact you will never get any job meaning you will inevitably end up being homeless.
4. The importance of Anxiety:
It can be harder to set your priorities when you are suffering from Anxiety. Something as mundane as deciding what to wear to the supermarket can seem as important as your upcoming job interview. This is where it becomes easy to feel overwhelmed, with thoughts like -so much to do, and so little time.
5. Listening to your Anxiety:
If you are anxious about attending a social event where you don’t know anybody and your anxious mind is telling you to stay home, listening to those thoughts and acting on them will make you feel more calm. Sometimes it is better to listen to your Anxiety in order for it to go away, but if it becomes a habit this reinforces anxiety circuits that live in your brain.
6. Limit the things you listen to:
Although acting on what goes through your mind in the middle of an Anxiety crisis is what makes the anxiousness go away, this will become something that you start to rely on more and more. If you don’t attend the social event, further down the line you won’t be going out at all. Every experience you have with Anxiety will feed into that cycle until your world becomes too small for you to breathe in.
7. Personality traits feed into Anxiety:
Many people that are prone to Anxiety can often be critical of themselves, internalise their emotions, become uncomfortable around strong emotions and will go the extra mile in order to avoid conflict. What accompanies Anxiety is a ‘put everybody else’s needs before your own’ coping style.
8. Anxiety covers other emotions:
Anxiety can become so strong in some people’s minds that it becomes difficult for them to discern any feelings except Anxiety. Anger, sadness, disappointment, hurt, etc., can all translate into and be seen as Anxiety.
Anxiety is about having a deep fear of the world and what it contains. Some people fear other people, animals or not having control over their future. Differentiate Rational from Irrational Anxiety, track your anxiousness so you can stop it before it gets out of hand, ask yourself what it is that you are feeling besides Anxiety and establish your own priorities and boundaries. This will enlarge your world rather than diminishing it, and it will build up your self-confidence and self-esteem which will in turn, change your perspective on negative and positive thoughts.