Anxiety

As i spoke about in the last blog. I am a life mentor for mindfull. As part of that i am able to host webchats online, for the users :) Anxiety is a subject i'm passionate about because so many people struggle with yet we talk about it so little 

More than 1 in 10 people are likely to have a ‘disabling anxiety disorder’ at some stage in their life. What's more is that 1 in 6 young people will experience some sort of anxiety problems in their life. In a class of 30 that's 5 people who will suffer from Anxiety problems!. So even if it feels like you are you are most definitely not alone. So, i thought i would take a quick look at some of the stuff we looked at, so here goes.

I think its quite nice to look at understanding what something is and what causes it first, that we can figure out ways in which we can control it.

Sooo, What is Anxiety?
You lot all had lots to say about this one and really seemed to know your stuff.
We feel anxious in response to a situation. We will have all felt some anxiety at some point for example before an exam you might feel tense, uncertain perhaps, fearful at the thought of sitting an exam or doing something new. Often when someone has anxiety they might worry about, what people are thinking, looking foolish, or something bad happening.

Why do we feel Anxious ?
Its the Fight or Flight, In the old mod days :P only kidding. Anxiety helped keep us safe, Anxiety kicks in when we feel in danger and need to react quickly. When we feel anxious our body releases hormones including adrenalin. This would then allow us to either run away or stay and fight, this need to happen quickly to respond to the situation. We have evolved so we don’t often experience these type of threats, but Anxiety has too causing Anxiety to happen in situations which might be embarrassing. This change is what causes the Physical symptoms that cause anxiety.

Symptoms
We then looked at some symptoms and things that happen when we feel anxious, I will not list too many but here is a few :)

Your heart beats faster to get more blood around your body, Rapid breathing (Hyperventilation) when we do this and have a Panic attack it may feel as if we cannot breath but we actually have too much Carbon Dioxide in our lungs and blood, And we need a certain amount so our body absorb the oxygen. We might find we Sweat to keep us cool. We might get a dry mouth or Feel sick this is because the digestive system slows down in order to save energy. We might feel dizzy or get “Jelly legs”. You might find you want the toilet. Finally for now Headaches, this can sometimes be caused by the tension when we are anxious.

We then looked at some thoughts and feeling you might have when your anxious. Here are just a few but i feel the list is endless as we are all unique.

Thinking that you may lose control and/or go “mad”
Thinking and feeling that you may have a be sick or faint
Feeling that people are looking at you and observing your anxiety
Feeling as though things are speeding up/slowing down
Feeling detached from your environment and the people in it
Feeling like wanting to run away/escape from the situation
Feeling on edge and alert to everything around you

We looked the the most common coping strategy that people tend to use which is Avoidance.
Avoidance gives you some immediate relief but it’s only a short term solution. It might feel as if it’s the best or only thing to do, but it actually reinforces the feeling that you cannot cope with it and that it is dangerous.
It can be looked at as a vicious cycle. The thoughts such as Something terrible will happen then the feelings such as Breathing rapidly then the behaviors Running away from the situation or avoiding it. We never get to see what would happen so we still believe that something terrible will happen.

So, what can we do.
Breathing I know it sounds really simple but it can make a huge difference, Putting you hands on your stomach and feeling the air move in and out. You can count while your doing this you can even do it in times tables as it makes you concentrate a little more. Some people also find drawing a square while breathing helpful, and doing it in sets of 4.
Distract your self they are o many ways you can do this such as music, puzzles, Games just doing something you enjoy. Music can help when your out too.
Take it in little steps. For example if you have anxiety on public transport the first step might just be walking to the bus stop and leaving, then sitting at the bus stop as a bus stops, then getting onto the bus with someone you trust and going one stop and so on. Reward your self when you manage. But of course only do it if it is safe to do so.
They are lots more you can do but this is getting silly long now, so we will end it by saying. Anxiety is one little tree in your forest. Step back and look at the whole forest. :)

This blog is taken from a blog i wrote after the webchat on Mindfull. See that here - http://www.mindfull.org/blog/post/Emma%40LM20/2014/05/anxiety-the-web-chat/?back=/blog/

Image taken from -  http://healthsciencedegree.info/anxiety-tumblr-gif/ 09.07.2014