Anxiety And Its Many Forms

Anxiety is one of the most unpleasant sensations a person can feel. The level of discomfort depends on the intensity of the feeling and the environment in which it occurs.

In general, anxiety interferes with normal life, but sometimes it can even be impossible for the sufferer to do the things he or she does normally.

In this article, we explain the basic aspects of anxiety . If you find yourself identifying with any of them, it may be a good idea to seek help from a psychologist who specializes in that topic.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety disorders are the most common psychological disorders among the general population. Since it is a very broad term, it is good to know how to distinguish the different forms in which anxiety manifests itself. To help you do this, we will explain below the difference between panic, fear, and phobias.

Anxiety is an emotional reaction that includes emotions caused by stress, restlessness, nervousness, and anxiety that activate the autonomic nervous system. Panic is a similar sensation, but it emphasizes physical symptoms, while psychological symptoms are those that predominate in anxiety.

Where fears are associated with identifiable external stimuli, anxiety appears without any perceptible external threat. Phobias are disproportionate fears that typically lead to illogical patterns of behavior that avoid phobic situations.

The feeling of anxiety is proactive, which makes it a particularly uncomfortable and overwhelming feeling. It is cognitive in nature and is often future-oriented, which means it can happen at any time.

In addition to one’s own cognitive nature, there is an element of learning that often leads to the appearance of anxiety.

In addition, the onset of anxiety also has a biological component; bluish brain overactivity, imbalance of GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, and differences in neural networks between the thalamus and the tonsil are all factors observed in people suffering from anxiety.

How does it work?

Anxiety is not a unified system, but rather formed as a reaction of three systems. These three systems are the subjective, physiological, and motor systems. They can all be activated at once or individually.

People most often experience unpleasant thoughts (subjective system) that they also feel in their body in the form of an irregular heartbeat, dilated pupils, and vibration (physiological system). They also feel anxiety in their facial expressions, gestures, and ways of avoiding (motor system).

Symptoms of anxiety

Anxiety is fundamentally characterized by two general and dominant feelings:

• Helplessness: a feeling of lack of control and that you can do nothing to avoid the inevitable internal and external events.
• Uncertainty: the feeling that you do not know what will happen in the future, which worries you and causes anxiety and a feeling of psychological uneasiness.

Anxiety has many of the same symptoms as depression, but there are numerous other symptoms that differentiate the two.

Some of the most common symptoms of anxiety, which are the same for depression, are characterized by a strong negative emotional reaction. These include anxiety, poor concentration, irritability, insomnia, fatigue, psychomotor restlessness, crying, feelings of inferiority, guilt, and low self-esteem.

Symptoms more characteristic of anxiety include fear, panic, nervousness, avoidance, instability, alertness, sense of threat or danger, high activity of the sympathetic nervous system, and so on.

Under the concept of anxiety, there are many different syndromes that depend on the structure of the symptoms. Such syndromes include, for example, open space dread, panic attacks, certain  phobias, fear of social situations, generalized anxiety disorder, and selective mutism.

Many forms of anxiety and how to treat them

There are many possible treatments for anxiety that depend on the form of the anxiety disorder. Some therapies have proven to be more effective than others. It all depends on the professional helper and which form of treatment is best for you.

Cognitive psychotherapy, which includes relaxation exercises, cognitive therapy, exposure, and relapse prevention, is most commonly used to treat generalized anxiety disorder . Medicine is also used as a form of treatment, while the use of hypnosis is still at an experimental level.

Other common syndromes such as phobias are treated through exposure. Cognitive psychotherapy and a cognitive-constructive approach, as well as the practice of social skills, are used as a form of treatment for fear of social situations.

To face your anxiety, you must first feel it and yourself and look for a professional in your hands who can help you curb it, as there are many different treatments that can be tailored to suit a particular person and a particular type of anxiety. If anxiety is treated properly, it is often helpful.