Anxiety: from Staying Healthy to Getting Sick

Fear is stressful but useful: the emotion is an archaic protective program that warns us of danger and thus gives us the opportunity to take appropriate countermeasures. But fear can also make us ill. Read here when anxiety is a symptom of a disease and how to treat anxiety disorders.

Forms of anxiety

Anxiety is a central part of our psyche. While it is unpleasant, oppressive, and distressing, it has helped us since time immemorial to register potentially dangerous situations and escape from them by escaping.

However, anxiety is also a central symptom of numerous mental disorders; it can be a consequence of an organic disease (such as hyperthyroidism) or of medication, alcohol or other drugs. Pathological mental anxiety disorders are divided into phobias, panic disorders, and generalized anxiety disorders.

Anxiety or fear?

Sometimes fear of something concrete, such as a specific situation or a particular animal, is also referred to as dread, thus distinguishing it from the actual concept of anxiety as trepidation about the undefined.

However, this distinction is not consistently made even in the specialist literature and, for example, fear of spiders, fear of exams or fear of something scary is spoken of. Mostly, therefore, both terms fear and anxiety are used synonymously.

Symptoms of fear

As mentioned earlier, fear warns of danger and thus can boost our performance and motivate us to act. It leads to defense and escape reflexes (such as curling up or running away when physically attacked), is a fine sensor for evaluating normative behavior, and, last but not least, is a driving force and catalyst for creativity for many artists.

Anxiety can be accompanied by physical symptoms that vary from individual to individual, for example:

  • Palpitations
  • Shortness of breath
  • Sweating attacks
  • Dry mouth
  • Tremor
  • Diarrhea
  • Abdominal pain

When anxiety is great, desire retreats – anyone who has ever tried in vain to choke down a delicious breakfast before an exam or distract themselves with tenderness can confirm this. And if anxiety is too strong, its positive effect turns into the opposite, as it ties up many resources: Concentration and performance decrease, perception and physical mobility are restricted.

If pronounced anxiety persists for longer, it can cause stress-related illnesses and physical diseases (for example, stomach ulcers).

Anxiety between normality and illness

The line between normal and pathological anxiety is often not easy to draw. For example, not every shy person who blushes frequently suffers from a social phobia, or everyone who is afraid of death suffers from panic attacks. Important assessment factors are whether a fear is well-founded, how low the trigger threshold is, whether and to what extent it limits everyday life and performance and/or dominates thinking. Examples include:

  • If a singer suffers from stage fright before his performance, this is quite normal – but then remains him constantly the spit away, so that he can no longer sing in front of an audience, no longer.
  • If someone is afraid of being mugged at night in the subway, this is normal – but if he can no longer leave the apartment because of his fears, the threshold to pathological anxiety disorder is crossed.
  • Some fears, such as those of darkness, are normal in children, but then give themselves later.