Anxiety 101: What is Anxiety and When Does Anxiety Become a Problem?
You may often hear from friends, family, and people on social media that they are”having anxiety” or that they are “anxious”. Today I am here to clarify what anxiety is, how you know when anxiety may be something you struggle with, and how you can reduce it.
Let’s dive right in!
What is Anxiety: Anxiety vs Fear
In order to understand anxiety, it is important to decipher between fear and anxiety. Anxiety is a normal instinctual response to when our body perceives danger, a risk, or a threat from our outside environment. When I think about anxiety, I think of it as a “radar” detector keeping us safe from emotions, the unknown, or potential pain/ danger. Depending on how “sensitive” or “high alert” your radar detector is, the more vague the source of the anxiety can be or more frequent you may feel the symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety is developed from past experiences and what we were taught by our caretakers. For example, as a child, if you were sad yet taught to “rub some dirt on it” or “get over it” when crying, you may feel anxiety as an adult when feeling sadness. In different ways, we may have been taught that emotions were “bad” or “wrong” making them dangerous to feel. Therefore, our body is taught that feeling emotions is a risk, which turns on our “radar system”, pushes down our core emotions, and leads us to feel anxiety. When we are feeling anxious, the cause is usually in reaction to our emotions rather than our actual present environment. If this sounds like you, you are absolutely not alone.
The core emotion of fear is when we are in immediate danger and there is some threat to our life. For example, imagine that you are an animal in the wild and you see a lion hurtling towards you. Imagine what feelings and immediate responses you would have. Most likely, a jolt of fear would arise in your body. Your heart may start pounding, you may have pain in your chest, your thoughts would start to race, you may even start to shake or sweat. You may begin to sprint from the lion, begin to fight the lion, or freeze up. These are instinctual responses to our core emotion of fear. The danger is very clear and immediate. Let’s notice that the physical sensations of fear are extremely similar to the physical sensations of anxiety which makes it tricky for our bodies to notice whether there is a core immediate need for fear or if it is our radar detector *anxiety* responding to a perceived fear.
When Does Anxiety Become a Problem?
As a Clinical Mental Health Counselor, and a human who experiences anxiety, I often hear this question and believe the answer to it is different for everyone. I want to emphasize that anxiety is not bad. Mild anxiety actually is important, it can motivate us or send us a message that something feels risky or important to us. A general rule to go by is if anxiety feels like too much to cope with and it has impacted your daily functioning, it may be something to stay curious about.
Here are some things to ask yourself:
Has the intensity and frequency of my anxiety increased?
How and when do I notice anxiety within my body?
Have the feelings of anxiety stopped me from doing things I enjoy or are important to me?
Have my feelings of anxiety inhibited my daily functioning such as sleeping and eating?
Have my feelings of anxiety created a sense of insecurity at work, within myself, or within my social life?
How often am I worrying about the future rather than staying connected to my present self?
If the answers to these questions startled you or highlighted important information for you, that is totally ok. Take some time and space to continue noticing how anxiety plays a role in your life. If it doesn’t feel manageable, feel free to reach out to us and schedule a free 15 minute phone consultation so you don’t have to struggle through this alone.
How do you notice and cope with your anxiety? Let us know by commenting below!
Marissa Robinson, LMHC
