OVERVIEW OF GENERALISED ANXIETY

INTRO

Well, everybody experiences general feelings of nervousness or a sense of being worried about something. In fact, a study has shown that almost 2 in every 5 people worry at least once everyday. For some people though, worrying and feeling anxious is chronic and can seem to take over. Chronic worrying is a part of generalised anxiety, which can affect any kind of person at any stage of their life. It is estimated that about 1 in every 20 people experience significant generalised anxiety at some point in their lives. So remember, you are not alone.

The aim of this blog is to provide readers with some general information about anxiety and generalised anxiety disorder, to describe the types of symptoms common to generalised anxiety, and to discuss what causes generalised anxiety.

UNDERSTANDING ANXIETY

Let's begin this section by talking about what we mean by anxiety.....

Feeling afraid is very much part of the experience of being human. Fear is actually a survival instinct when it occurs in response to a realistically dangerous situation. Think about how you might react if a dangerous animal approached you. Most likely you would respond with fear. In fact, it is often helpful to respond with fear at times like this because when we become afraid, our body goes through a whole series of changes that ultimately serve to protect us. This fear response would probably lead us to either run for our lives or become sufficiently 'pumped up' to physically defend ourselves. As you can see from this example, the experience of fear is part of the process of survival.

Anxiety can also be experienced in less threatening situations. For example, athletes before a big game or race will feel some degree of anxiety. This is a good thing, as some anxiety in this situation will pump them up and get them ready to compete.

Anxiety only becomes a problem when it is out or proportion to the situation, that is, when if often occurs in situations where there is no actual threat or danger. Some anxiety might be anticipated in certain situations (eg. a job interview, making a sales pitch), but if the anxiety is so extreme that it stops you from doing what needs to be done, then it becomes a problem. When anxiety occurs at this extreme level, it interferes with your quality of life.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANXIETY

Anxiety can be experienced in different ways, and you may find it helpful to be able to differentiate between different levels of anxiety....

FEAR describes a very intense type of anxiety and tends to be a reaction to an immediate and specific situation. Sometimes this fear occurs in social situations or at the thought of an up and coming social event. We would call this type of fear "social anxiety". Other people experience intense fear in response to very specific things, for example, spiders, heights or water. These fears are known as phobias. While others experience fear that feels like "sheer terror" that come out of the blue. These are known as panic attacks.

This blog addresses a level of anxiety that is described as Generalised anxiety, nervousness or chronic worrying This type of anxiety has similar physical and emotional charactersitics to those of fear, but may be experienced at a different level of intensity. Instead of going straight to sheer terror, this anxiety builds up more gradually, has a high level of tension and gives you little peace of mind. The anxiety is often long lasting and may appear when actually experiencing a negative event, or anticipating a future event.