Feelings of anxiety normally manifest as unease, worry, or fear about something with an uncertain outcome. It’s a response to our natural instinct to protect ourselves from threat or perceived threat. Everyone has feelings of anxiety about something at some point but for some, these feelings can seem uncontrollable. In many cases the response can be physical which is why sometimes anxiety is not considered a mental illness.
Anxiety disorders exist separately and can be the cause of considerable distress and disability. Example of anxiety disorders are phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and general anxiety disorder (GAD).
Anxiety is about extremes, thinking the worst will happen, it will be terrible, horrible, the end of the world, instead of concerning, unfortunate, unpleasant or difficult. The more extreme the thought the worse the anxiety will be. Labelling the thought can then be the cause of more extreme thoughts as the original disturbing thought is compounded.
One of the difficulties is that it’s very hard to ignore thoughts, but they are just that, thoughts not premonitions and not evidence you must act on. Anxiety is a not problem of danger, its a problem of worrying about danger.
It may help to think of your anxious thoughts as a separate person, a person who is trying to protect you. The amygdala (a small complex structure of cells in the brain) is responsible for putting us on alert. We are naturally always on alert because our amygdala (or Bob as I call it) is trying to protect us. Bob sends up a flare, an anxious thought, anxious thoughts lead to anxious feelings which lead to protective behaviours to reduce the fear. The anxiety is reduced until the next time Bob sees a threat.
Bob is there to warn you, how you deal with that warning is up to you. Search on the word anxiety to learn more.
