What is Anxiety?

Anxiety 101

Anxiety is an intense and persistent worry that seems disproportionate to the situation. Anxiety is a feeling that all people can have and feeling anxious doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a mental health diagnosis. It can however, be a symptom of a mental health disorder.

What does anxiety feel like?

Feelings have mental and physical components. Some people are aware of both, but some people recognize only physical sensations or internal thoughts. So what does it feel like? It could be a mixture of things. Here are some top physical sensations commonly associated with anxiety:

• An upset stomach, nausea, or digestive trouble

• Rapid breathing

• Feeling light-headed or dizzy

• Sweating or hot flushes

• Feeling a sensation like pins and needles in the extremities (usually hands or feet)

• Feeling restless or unable to sit still, you may fidget or pace

• Headaches, backache or other aches and pains in areas like the jaw or shoulders

• Pounding or faster heartbeat

• Weakness or fatigue

• Trembling or shaking

  What are the mental components of anxiety?

There are many ways to be anxious. When someone is feeling anxious, the mind is working hard on real or perceived problems. Here are some examples of common mental components of anxiety:

• Feeling nervous or unable to relax

• Having a sense of dread

• Feeling like time is speeding up or slowing down

• Feeling like other people know you are anxious and are looking at you

• Feeling like you can't stop worrying, or like bad things will happen

• Rumination – Thinking about a situation again and again

• Depersonalisation – You feel disconnected from your mind or body, or like you are seeing yourself from the outside

• Derealisation – You feel disconnected from the world, or like the world isn't real

• Future-Tripping- Worrying a lot about things that might happen in the future

  Why do I get anxiety? Is there something wrong with me if I feel anxious?

  The answer to that is- no. There isn’t something wrong with you for feeling anxious. Remember, anxiety is a feeling and all people can feel all feelings and that is totally “normal”. What is important is to understand what we are feeling and learn to cope so that you don’t get stuck in negative emotions like anxiety.

  Anxiety is similar to fear. When a person feels fear there is typically an identifiable trigger event that made them think a thought that made them feel this emotion. When a person feels anxious the trigger is their though without necessarily having a trigger.

  For example, if you were to think “there is a tiger in the room"!” (imagine it was true) it would trigger a similar response to you thinking, “The world isn’t real!” (imagine the world is indeed real and this is an anxious thought). Your mind responds to thoughts, either real or imaginary with feelings such as anxiety.

  How do I cope with anxiety?

  Although anxiety is an emotion that everyone can feel, it is a negative feeling and one that we don’t want to get stuck on. Just like the many symptoms of anxiety, there are many different ways to cope and one may work for you one day but not the next, so the best thing to do is to build a tool box of skills that work for you so you can be prepared the next time anxiety hits.

  If you want to get started right now, you can try the 3 3 3 Rule.

• Look around you and name three things you can see

• Name three sounds that you can hear

• Focus on three parts of your body and describe how they feel

Ready to get started on tackling your anxiety? Give this technique a try today and add one more technique to your coping tool belt.

-Brittany