Two emotional states, fear and anxiety, that once helped humans survive now set off physical and emotional responses that seem to "mess up" our lives, according to Dr. Robert Leahy, author of "Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before They Unravel You," and internationally known writer and speaker on the topic of anxiety. Fear and anxiety, two different emotions, both fall on a spectrum from a normal-type emotional reaction, which doesn't impact daily life, to an actual disorder, which does impact your daily life.
History
Dr. Leahy says that a key to managing anxiety involves understanding it. For primitive people, fear played a protective and adaptive role. Just knowing the irrationality of a fear won't work. Actually experiencing the situation over and over without anything harmful happening retrains our brains to react more rationally and less primitively. The same goes for anxiety. Anxiety once played a protective and adaptive role, too. A mother who worried and sheltered her children from others stricken with illness knew the deadliness of germs versus today, the extreme worry about a child's health limits a mother's energy and creates a "dangerous world" type mentality for her children. Examining the out-of-date "rules" of your ancestors and replacing them with a more rational, workable set of rules will do what evolution has not yet done, adapting anxiety to present-day circumstances.
Anxiety
J. Paul Caldwell, MD, author of "Anxiety Disorders: Everything You Need To Know," and family practitioner for more than 25 years, describes anxiety as having two dimensions: the inner feeling of distress and the physiological changes of alertness. Feelings that go with anxiety include an unpleasant but vague sense of apprehension, a sense of unease, and intense concern about danger or threat. The physical symptoms may include headache; sweating; a racing heart; a tight chest; gastric discomfort; restlessness, and fast, shallow breathing.
The anxiety response can come from a normal event such as thinking about a test you have the next day. When the test ends, the symptoms vanish, and you go on with your life.
Dr. Caldwell says excessive worrying over simple everyday occurrences and events that impact you in your day-to-day life is known as generalized anxiety disorder. The anxiety persists for weeks, even months, and is present more days than not.
Fear
Separate from anxiety, fear shares many same qualities. Dr. Caldwell distinguishes fear from anxiety by pointing out that the fear response comes after an external threatening event, object or situation. Fear, an unpleasant experience, causes an alerting reaction physically. Fear happens when danger presents, such as a dog leaping out at you snarling. The fear makes your heart skip a beat, and you become focused. The threat of being bitten is external and real. Dr. Caldwell distinguishes fear from anxiety using the example of the dog being an external threat. The worry you feel the night before the test produces anxiety. Fear is a response to external stimuli, but anxiety comes from within you.
When a fear moves into severe, unreasonable reactions to certain situations, such as planes, elevators or deep water, it has become a phobia. According to Dr. Leahy, about 12% of the population has a specific phobia.
Effects
According to Dr. Leahy, a specific phobia can cause a person to avoid situations such as traveling, leaving the ground floor or being out in nature. Although the object that causes the phobia is avoidable, it may have significant limitations for the person.
Dr. Leahy says that generalized anxiety disorders can keep your mind constantly racing with worries, making it difficult, if not impossible, to relax. According to Jonathan Davidson, MD, author of "The Anxiety Book: Developing Strength in the Face of Fear," people often experience physical symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, stomachaches, backaches or fatigue with no medical explanation.
Treatment
According to Dr. Caldwell, no matter where you fall on the anxiety or fear spectrum, the symptoms are highly manageable and treatable. Many treatment methods exist for treating both day-to-day anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder, including relaxation techniques; meditation; deep breathing; and lifestyle changes such as improved nutrition, avoiding stimulants such as caffeine, engaging in regular physical activity and getting a good night's sleep. Psychotherapy and medication in combination with the above methods help to alleviate generalized anxiety.
Dr. Edmund Bourne, author of "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" and specialist in treating anxiety, recommends treating phobias with desensitization, or unlearning the link between the anxiety and the particular situation, and then reassociating feelings of calm with that same situation. The person does not have to experience exposure to the actual phobic situation for desensitization to occur; imagery desensitization can also be used.
References
- "Anxiety Free: Unravel Your Fears Before They Unravel You"; Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D.; 2009
- "Anxiety Disorders: Everything You Need to Know"; J. Paul Caldwell, MD,CCFP; 2005
- "The Anxiety Book: Developing Strength in the Face of Fear"; Jonathan Davidson, M.D. with Henry Dreher; 2003
- "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook"; Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D.; 2000
