What is anxiety?
Anxiety, defined
So what?
Per Wikipedia, anxiety is defined as “an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil”. It is comprised of “unpleasant feelings of dread over anticipated events”. Knowing what anxiety is allows you to:
- Know when you are anxious and suffering from anxiety;
- Be aware of how it affects your ability to live life, work and undertake various activities;
- Develop a plan to manage anxiety; and
- Seek specific help and/or treatment from qualified therapists.
Disclaimer: We are not health professionals. This post is comprised of our experiences and research. When in doubt, speak to your General Practitioner (GP).
Causes
The cause of anxiety is due to your body’s response to a perceived or actual threat. Your body gives you sudden burst of energy and alertness to either fight or flight the perceived or actual threat you are faced with. Anxiety becomes a problem when it is prolonged, uncontrollable and detrimentally affects your life. Too much of anything, let alone energy and alertness that you would need to fight or flight a grizzly bear standing in front of you, is never a good thing. It’s when your survival instinct overtakes and takes hold of you.
Factors
There are three main factors that must be considered when assessing anxiety: duration, intensity and frequency. These determine how severe your anxiety is and what can be done about it.
- Duration: Does your anxiety end once the situation is over? Or does it never go away?
- Intensity: What kind of physical sensations and emotions do you feel? Does is prevent you from doing what you enjoy and hinder your day to day life?
- Frequency: How often does it occur? Is it coming and going multiple times a day?
Normal anxiety
Not all anxiety is bad. As noted above, it can become problematic. It can be beneficial too. Normal anxiety is when it’s onset is brought on by certain situations or events and occur intermittently. Nervousness and mild anxiety can be normal and easily manageable. These feelings don’t disrupt your daily life and can be beneficial in many ways.
Problem anxiety
Anxiety that interferes with your daily life, in a chronic and irrational way is a problematic anxiety. Such anxiety doesn’t completely go away. It’s persistent and makes it difficult for you to go about your day. You’re constantly bombarded by negative emotions, physical symptoms and damaging thoughts. As soon as you are not able to cope with it, you should seek professional help.
My experience
I grew up believing that boys don’t cry and men don’t visit the doctor. Naturally, anxiety was something that I thought was completely normal and nothing to be concerned about, even when it became a problem anxiety. Even after starting on my personal development journey, my anxiety was put on the back burner. I just “learned” to cope with it mostly by hiding and suppressing it. It wasn’t until our marriage broke down and we were separated that my anxiety got out of control which forced me to seek help from my GP. Morale of the story is don’t wait and put it aside. No matter how strong you think you are, anxiety can and will take hold of you if not managed properly.
What now?
- Consider the duration, insanity and frequency of your anxiousness.
- When in doubt, speak to your GP.