Nowadays, anxiety has become a “normalized” disorder to have due to various factors – social media pressure, less stigma around mental illnesses, depression among young adults, and many more.
However, do you really know what anxiety is?
This is a serious illness that could affect the everyday life of the person who suffers from it, and this subject should not be taken lightly. It happens the same as with depression; saying, “I’m depressed” just because you’re feeling sad doesn’t mean you’re actually suffering from that illness.
Many people confuse symptoms, so it’s important to be informed about the essentials surrounding anxiety.
Understanding Anxiety
Anxiety is a term used to describe the subjective experience of an unpleasant tension, uneasiness, and distress accompanied by the sensation of imminent threat and physical conflict.
Many people confuse this disorder with just feeling nervous about a particular situation, but this is far from the truth. Having anxiety is an overwhelming experience because your whole body submerges itself in a complete state of distress.
A person with an anxiety disorder can experience a rise in the heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure. As well as hyperventilation, trembling, cold sweat, and many more symptoms.
Sometimes, we can feel these symptoms when we’re dealing with a stressful situation, and that’s understandable – but it doesn’t mean that you’re suffering from this disorder.
Anxiety Has Two Primary Divisions: Conscious Anxiety and Unconscious Anxiety
Most people get diagnosed with this mental affection when they suffer from unconscious anxiety attacks, where there’s no apparent threat, but the person still feels uneasy and distressed. When a person suffering from this disease is in a stressful situation, it can trigger a conscious anxiety attack, presenting the same symptoms but followed by a clear cause.
It Can Also Be Divided in Indicative Anxiety and Separation Anxiety
The indicative anxiety, according to Freud, has a signaling function. It means that it warns your body and prepares it to face threats and imminent danger, and it comes from a primitive impulse. This type is characterized by the awareness of the anxiety, but the person doesn’t know the cause of it.
This disorder can be observed in stressful situations in their daily life. A person can have nightmares, or anxiety can be generalized, with an overall feeling of nervousness all the time.
On the other hand, the separation anxiety occurs when the person is facing an imminent feeling of abandonment or the loss of a person they can’t live without. This type is frequent on young kids that depend on their parents, immature people, or people that deal with psychotic disorders.
Causes
Anxiety can be caused by anything and everything.
Depending on the level of the disorder, it can be triggered by many things. In Indicative Anxiety, the trigger is usually unrecognized as the body reacts to a “threat” imposed by their own mind.
However, on the Separation Anxiety, the trigger is the thought of losing a person in your life, which can lead to a panic disorder.
It’s known that social situations are also triggers for those who suffer from this condition. It can be seen a lot in high schools, colleges, workplaces, and more. Usually, the person feels like their actions are constantly observed by others surrounding them, which makes them worry excessively about what they do and what they say – causing an anxiety attack.
Treatment
Therapy
People who suffer from anxiety disorder claim that going to regular therapy sessions helps a lot with their condition. Talking with someone who can understand you and make you feel safe is the best way to get around the situation.
Medication
A long time ago, there wasn’t a specific medication that people with this mental affection could take to ease their symptoms. This occurred because doctors thought that mental illnesses were side effects of other physical diseases. When psychiatrists understood that the mind could produce ailments by itself, they started developing medicine for them.
Most of these consist of anxiolytics, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and others.
Unorthodox Treatments
Besides the usual medication, there are some treatments that people experiment with. Some of these have amazing effects that seem to take away the whole disorder!
For example, exercising, drinking relaxing teas, and using marijuana plants. Cannabis has been one of these fantastic treatments, especially the sleep relief strains, which allows the person to be more aware of their surroundings and sleep better at night without stressful thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Anxiety is a severe disorder that can completely change the life of a person. It’s usually confused with nervousness, but it’s more than that – it’s a complete state of distress and panic against a specific or an uncertain situation.
There are many ways to relieve the symptoms, including medication, therapy, cannabis, tea, and more.