Fears are something quite natural – before something has each of us fear. It only becomes critical as soon as the fears can no longer be controlled and get out of hand. When fear dominates everyday life, it is time to act. With already simple methods, living in constant worry can be lessened.
Anxieties – what is behind them?
Our fear is a feeling that is deeply rooted in our instincts: even prehistoric people felt it, because it could save their own lives. Fear helps us to recognize risks in everyday life and to deal with them accordingly; it makes us more mindful and careful. Our body also reacts to it: our heart starts pumping faster, under certain circumstances we feel hot, we feel stressed and we unconsciously tense our muscles – in this case our senses are working at full speed and we are ready for immediate reactions. Does this feeling sound familiar to you? Surely you too have experienced situations in your everyday life in which you felt anxious – whether it was before an upcoming exam, a visit to the dentist, a conversation with your boss, or even a trip by plane. We can also feel anxious not knowing if our beloved family is doing well or if an illness is worse than suspected. While some people only experience a slightly queasy feeling, other frightened people feel paralyzed. Sometimes the suffering can even degenerate into physical discomfort: Not everyone can calmly enter an airplane; some people downright force themselves to do so. It is the same with examination situations or also before discussions with authority figures. But here the important question arises: when does anxiety have a pathological effect?
Fears – when are they still normal and when pathological?
Anxiety in most cases relates to a specific situation and therefore decreases again when it has passed. It can become a burden even to people who otherwise seem rather calm and courageous. Although anxiety can be a hindrance in everyday life, it is always possible to work on reducing it or perhaps even overcoming it altogether. Under certain circumstances, there may be a deeper-lying disorder that needs to be treated. Many people are particularly afraid of serious illnesses: they are surprised by a diagnosis, don’t know how to deal with it, and feel paralyzed. Those who have had problems several times should consider seeking the help of a therapist to regain peace of mind. This is especially necessary when it becomes clear that anxiety is getting out of hand, influencing one’s entire daily life, and perhaps even limiting a person to such an extent that he or she can no longer pursue accustomed activities. Here it is very likely that an anxiety disorder is present or the reason is to be sought in another psychological problem. Anxiety can, to such an extent, destroy one’s life.
How does anxiety manifest itself in everyday life?
Anxiety has many faces – and it affects quite a few people in their everyday lives. We present the most common anxiety disorders here.
- Panic attacks
Those who suffer from panic disorder are often afflicted by anxiety attacks that occur again and again – usually in always very comparable situations. This can be a crowd, but also the fear in the dark, in an elevator or in a tunnel. A fear of spiders can also be very pronounced – this limiting extent is then already called a phobia. A panic attack often brings not only a psychological but also a physical reaction. One starts to breathe quickly, trembles all over the body, has the feeling of not being able to breathe, feels a pressure in the chest or gets circulatory problems – even fainting or seizures are possible. As a rule, such a panic attack lasts only a few seconds or minutes, but in extreme cases there are also cases in which those affected suffer for several hours. After the attack reaches its peak, it will gradually decrease and one becomes calmer.
- The generalized anxiety
There are definitely fears that do not manifest themselves in a panic attack, but develop more and more over time.When restlessness grows, you feel a queasy feeling or you are also constantly tense, you are full of anxiety – or even when you think back and forth, can’t sort out your thoughts or constantly think of the worst. Surely every single one of us has experienced such anxiety at some point, whether in our private lives or even in a specific professional situation that was very stressful. If this fear persists over a longer period of time and does not go away, it is called generalized fear. In most cases, this hides a serious anxiety disorder that requires treatment – because it can worsen over time and then also disturb the social environment.
Where does severe anxiety come from?
Anxieties can have very different origins. For example, if you get a bad diagnosis from your family doctor, it is understandable that you get scared. This can be cancer, but also another threatening disease, with which one must now deal. The same problem often occurs with pain patients, whose pain symptoms can become even more severe and restrict them further precisely because of the fear. Therefore, the following applies: Anxiety is not always normal and within the scope, but is often a sign of physical or psychological disorders. These should be discussed as early as possible with a doctor to be able to take appropriate countermeasures before they get out of hand.
What can you do yourself against anxiety?
The first step is always not to simply dismiss or ignore fears as nonsensical – you should pay attention to them and take them seriously. Take time to examine where a fear might be coming from. Perhaps you had a bad experience in the past that triggered the worry? Once you have identified the cause, you can, on the one hand, try to eliminate it yourself – or, on the other hand, you can seek medical help directly before the anxiety takes over your daily life and becomes too limiting. Unfortunately, this often happens faster than you think. Fears that relate to a specific situation, such as a visit to the dentist, an exam or even the classic fear of flying, can be easily controlled. In such a case, you can usually fall back on a specific therapy that recognizes mild and more profound fears and treats them accordingly. It is best to talk to your family doctor about this first. You can already do a lot yourself by thinking about where your fears come from and how you could conquer them. If you have always had a shyness about certain situations, it can be worthwhile to consciously deal with them. For people who suffer from arachnophobia, for example, there are seminars in which you can deal with the little animals together with others – or even alone – in order to lose your shyness. Another possibility is to find the cause in stress. In this case, it is necessary to change something in the current lifestyle. Is one working a lot at the current time, does one have a stressful everyday life or perhaps private worries? In all these cases, you can make changes yourself in order to go through life less stressed and with more composure in the future. Think about what can be optimized and where you can also confidently take some time out – everyone needs this.
