According to the Merck Medical Manual:
Anxieties are a normal response to a threat or to psychological stress and they’re experienced occasionally by everyone. Normal anxiety has its roots in fear and serves an important survival function.
However, where anxiety symptoms persist and become long-term then it can develop into a disorder.
This helps to see where the line is drawn medically in order to understand more about what is part of the human condition, because we all have our off-days right, and what may be detrimental in as much as it stops us from achieving our wonderful potential.
People often use one term or the other, and seem to be pretty much the same thing, as far as our general referencing goes? Anxiety does sit underneath many closely related conditions, which in my view equates to long-term stress. For me it feels like a quivering nervous element that feels a little out of my control but what is it like for you?
Anxiety Is Common Enough
Anxiety lies at the heart of anything that makes us uncomfortable and can include things like:
- Social anxiety
- Public speaking
- Smoking
- Confidence
- Stress
Being In The Flow
When we are relaxed and feeling centred, in the flow of life, when all is well and everything clicks into place, running just as it should, the anxiety has nothing to latch onto.
It Can Come from Nowhere
But anxiety can erupt, perhaps it occurs in certain situations, and a former experience (or trigger) finds the pattern of anxiety pushing through, staking it’s claim for what seem like a myriad of reasons:
- Meeting new people
- Giving presentations
- Trying something new
- Something someone says
- Dealing with something you’ve been putting off
- Just the thoughts of doing something that is expected of you
It all contributes, you may even have set triggers and tracks that can be traced back to the originating moment when it commenced.
The effects of this finds us holding on (even gripping) needing to stay within the comfort zone to feel safe. Of course it’s different for everyone, but one of life’s challenges is to find the edge (which changes all the time), that place where comfort meets the unknown and how we handle it indicates the amount of work we may need to put in to addressing it, in order that it becomes less instead of more.
Check out The Two Phases Of Disease to learn how this can develop into a physical disease, pain, or unwanted behaviour or psychology.
If you want to check out the Merck Medical Manual. for yourself, it’s a great first point of reference, that I go to time and again.
Likewise if you want more information or a chat to find out more … contact Jane here.
Let’s Have A Chat
If you’d like to explore in more detail get in contact for a chat: