What is Anxiety?

In the most basic sense, anxiety usually occurs as a result of ongoing stress, worry, or just general negative expectations. All of these are kind of the same thing -- fear of some real or imagined negative possibilities. The fears could be of almost anything: embarrassment, illness, judgment, driving, flying, failure, poor performance, and so many others.. Since negative outcomes are possible for just about any situation, it's likely that you can identify a variety of things that cause you to worry... Anxious people, most of whom tend to dwell on and imagine the bad things that could happen, create a general environment of fear in their minds... Eventually the subconscious begins to interpret these mental images as real danger. You're imagining all these uncomfortable or even catastrophic scenarios, and sooner or later your mind reacts to them as reality and says "Hey, whatever it is that you're doing or going to do, it's not a good idea". The way it tells you this is by giving you the sensation of fear -- putting you into a self-preservation mode with the classic "fight or flight" response of releasing hormones like adrenaline into your body.

You may not realize this relationship at the time, because you don't have the usual visual signs of danger associated with adrenaline, but if you compare the sensation of fear and adrenaline to that of anxiety, you'll recognize the similarity. The big difference is that because the sense of danger is not being created by temporary physical threat, but rather by your minds ongoing negative thoughts and expectations, this fear response can endure for long periods of time. Symptoms of anxiety may start with elevated heart rate and a general sense of uneasiness or nervousness, but overtime can branch out into a wide variety of things: headaches, racing heart, insomnia, sweaty palms, muscle fatigue, indigestion, diarrhea, dizziness, lightheadedness, chest pain, and many more. Anxiety sufferers, with their tendency to imagine the worst case scenario, can also easily become hypochondriacal with just about any unusual body sensation, and especially with these anxiety symptoms themselves. It's easy to start believing that such feelings may be indicators of serious medical conditions. The rapid heartbeat may be interpreted as a sign of heart attack, lightheadedness as a sign of stroke or brain tumor, and so on. You should definitely see a doctor to rule out physical causes, but know that all of these symptoms are also very commonly the result of ongoing anxiety.

There are some other eventual manifestations of anxiety that I'd like to mention because of the severe impact they can have on the person experiencing them: anxiety attacks, unreality, agoraphobia, and depression. Please explore the preceding links before continuing.

NEXT PAGE: Anxiety Symptoms and Depression