Anxiety Self HelpFind helpful information about anxiety.

Anxiety is the body’s acute response to a perceived stress or danger. It can now and again be helpful in preparing the body for action, and in many situations can actually improve performance. It becomes a problem when within a person’s daily life it persistently interferes, and can then be totally debilitating. These two symptoms can be fellow bed mates and can often occur together.

Symptoms of anxiety are extremely common – with everyone experiencing them in some form or other. Being not as rare as you might think specific anxiety disorders or illnesses are also present in around 5 per cent of the population at any time, but what are the symptoms of anxiety? Anxiety can be felt in many different ways. Psychological symptoms * Tension within. * Agitation. * The loss of control. * Dreading that a catastrophe is going to happen, such as a blackout, seizures, heart attack or even death. * Being irritable. * Feeling detached, as if being held captive separate from the world. Physical symptoms * Fast heart beat (palpitations). * Breathing fast, a shortness of breath or finding it hard to ‘get breath’. * A tight chest. * Very dry mouth, butterflies in the stomach, feeling sick. * Wanting to immediately pass urine. * Tremors. * Sweats.

Hyperventilation (over breathing) syndrome is a common symptom of anxiety and is a particular combination of symptoms that affects some people. Both patients and doctors can often mistake it for serious medical illnesses, including epilepsy and heart attacks. An episode of hyperventilation starts when a person begins to breathe rapidly and shallowly. This may be triggered by something obvious that leads to anxiety, but often there is no obvious cause for the change in breathing. Breathing rapidly and shallowly causes changes to the chemistry of the body, which in turn lead to physical symptoms such as tingling in the fingers and around the mouth and light-headedness (and ultimately fainting).

Much of the feeling of anxiety can be associated with certain fears, but what is Fear? * You can be afraid or feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation or event; “I fear he/she might get aggressive”. * You can be afraid or scared of something; “I am afraid of spiders or flying!” * You can be sorry; used to introduce an unpleasant statement; “Im worried that I won’t make it to your birthday party”. * It can be an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight). * You can be uneasy or apprehensive about something; “I fear the results of my medical exams” * It can be a feeling of profound respect for someone or something; “the fear of God”. Fear can be summed up quite simply by the following acronym: False Evidence Appearing Real .That is we become anxious due to the fact that we have seen or perceived something as being real or a threat and this has sent our senses into overload and caused us anxiety or in extreme cases brought on a panic attack. This false evidence can be due also to things like Fear of the unknown, i.e. we have perceived something that we are not accustomed to(flying for instance) as being a danger and caused this reaction, also another catalyst can be fear of rejection ( being overlooked for promotion for instance) can also cause us to unwittingly become anxious.

Anxiety can cause symptoms such as a disjointed pattern of breathing – not fully breathing out – which leads to a feeling of chest tightness. Although these symptoms are not medically dangerous, they are nonetheless very frightening, which in turn causes an increase in anxiety and this then becomes a vicious circle. This hyperventilation can be simply treated by breathing in and out of a paper (not polythene) bag for a short time, this reverses the chemical changes which are caused by this over breathing. Treatment of the underlying cause of the anxiety and learning how to relax should however be the ultimate goal.

Don’t be a slave to the causes of anxiety, make sure you visit this excellent resource on avoiding and conquering your worries, and also here for all the reasons to life.