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Anxiety is basically another word for fear and is something that we all live with in our daily lives. Fear is another word for the thoughts and feeling we have that something we value is being threatened.
Anxiety is a normal part of everyday life. Humans never would have survived without it. Anxiety makes us listen more keenly when we hear a strange noise and tells us to check the traffic before we cross the road. The problem with modern day anxiety is that it can become overly sensitive and people can worry excessively about things at home, at work, relationships, money, how we look, whether we will ever be loved, how to loose weight, that promotion and so on ………
The mind looks for problems and solves them and will always find a problem that needs attention. That is what the mind does.
Problems with anxiety occur when the fear grows out of proportion and starts dictating behaviour. Major life events (like natural disasters, experiencing violence) can trigger anxiety. An Acute Stress reaction to extreme levels of anxiety or Post Traumatic Stress may develop in response to major life events.
More commonly, Anxiety disorders come about slowly and develop over time. The slow development makes anxiety difficult to gauge and people often present for treatment further down the track when they realise that their anxiety is creating problems for them in their everyday lives. Many people seeing a Psychologist for anxiety issues present with Generalised Anxiety Disorder which is, as the name implies, an anxiety that is generalised to many areas of life and is or has been causing problems. People suffering from Generalised Anxiety have trouble shaking their concerns and tend to worry all the time about every day stuff.
Fears can become irrational over time and the things people do to avoid anxiety can actually make matters worse. For example, an aspect of Social Phobia is the fear of being humiliated in public so people suffering from this disorder will avoid social events and can often end up being isolated. When someone suffering Social Phobia goes out they can be so crippled by anxiety they may panic and draw attention to them selves through their overly anxious behaviour.
There are also many specific phobias that develop about certain things like the fear of public speaking and fear of spiders for example. These fears may or may not be problematic. Most people are scared of snakes because many are poisonous and fear of public speaking is not a problem for most. However, fear of public speaking would be an issue if work success depended on presentations you regularly needed to make to your colleagues.
Panic occurs when someone becomes scared of their anxiety and experiences intense symptoms that feel like they are having a heart attack. Tight chest, racing pulse and sweating all signal that there is something to be feared so the body prepares to fight or run away. The increase in physical arousal increases worry about the anxiety and feedback loop increases with intensity. Some people develop elaborate rituals to contain their anxiety and these people can sometimes be diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
A skilled Psychologist can help teach skills and strategies to deal with the symptoms of anxiety and reduce the impact that it has on everyday life. Dealing more effectively with anxiety is empowering and having greater control boosts confidence to deal with whatever challenges life presents.
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- What tests diagnose anxiety disorder? (zocdoc.com)
- What to do if you suffer from a severe case of anxiety with a case of insomnia? (zocdoc.com)
- Is GAD the reason I’m antisocial? (zocdoc.com)
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Therapy Monkey 
What do you want?
13 Jan 2011 Leave a comment
by Therapy Monkey in Social Commentary Tags: Animal welfare
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To truly live you have to know what you want. Whether you want to do this or that. Less of one thing and more of another. You may want to try something completely different but are too scared of failure.
Having the idea is the most difficult thing to come up with but once the idea is there it can be a difficult thing to ignore. It has to be a realistic idea of course. Then, once you know what you want it’s a matter of going about getting it or working towards getting whatever it is. Sounds so simple but it really is.
The things that are important to you in life are your guide to finding a fulfilling existence, the path with a heart. There are lots of lists of values on the internet and web sites about this type of thing but we as people tend to look outside of ourselves for things that will make us happier. New job, career, new partner, shoes, car, watch, clothes, furniture, drugs and whatever else we can think of to make us happier. This is a band aid type approach.
Real happiness is not just a feeling, it is what you get for living life, being connected to others, doing the things that are important or meaningful to you. Please don’t be one of those people who sit there complaining that they just want to be happy and not do anything about it. Not everyone enjoys mowing the lawn or cleaning the house or exercising but everyone loves the feeling you get after you clean the house, or mow the lawn, or work out. So, if you believe in animal welfare, help animals. If you love music, go see someone play. If family is important, give a relative a call. If your health is important, exercise.
Use your negative emotions as a guide and ask your self what these emotions are telling you. If you are discontent, ask your self why you are unhappy and what you could do to become a happier person. Your negative emotions will tell you where to start. If you are angry you may just be angry at yourself for not doing stuff. You may be sad because you’ve let some opportunities pass you buy. Don’t dwell on this stuff, use it as information. Emotions tell us something important is happening.
Of course you will give your self lots of reasons why you can’t do this and can’t do that. If you can’t then that is how it is and don’t worry about it. Move to the next thing. Don’t spend your life being bitter that you haven’t done X, W or Z. You can get stuck believing that you will only been truly happy today if you’d done X, Y or Z yesterday. Check mate! If you haven’t done it you haven’t and if you can’t you can’t. Acceptance is key here. You don’t have to like it, just accept it. Done. Get angry, punch a pillow, talk to a friend about it and do something that you can do now.
So don’t live in the past and worry about the future. Live today and do something that is meaningful. The trick is to know what is meaningful and what is important to you.
Take Care
Therapy Monkey
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