Your life matters
Everyone has at least a little anxiety, but for some, it can get bad enough to disrupt everyday life. If you feel you may have problematic anxiety, your feelings are valid and you deserve support.
Anxiety
Anxiety (apprehensive expectation) disorders can take a variety of forms but at their core they are driven by excessive concern for real or imagined events.
What does anxiety feel like?
While there are official criteria for diagnosing anxiety, some have described it as:
Feeling keyed up, on edge, or restless
This is what most people think of when they hear anxiety. This can also involve panic attacks or physical symptoms.
Having a hard time focusing or remembering things
"Brain fog" as it is sometimes called can happen with most mental health conditions, especially anxiety. When the brain has to work overtime to adjust for anxiety, it struggles to keep up with other tasks like attention and memory.
Tired or drained, even after getting enough rest
Anxiety takes up a lot of energy and brain power, which can lead to fatigue that just won't go away.
Sleep disturbances
Being unable to stop anxious thoughts can lead to difficulty falling or staying asleep and/or restless unsatisfying sleep. This can also worsen feelings of fatigue mentioned in the previous slide.
Being more annoyed or frustrated
When our brains are trying to work through something like anxiety, it can make being patient more difficult.
Having unexplained feelings in the body
Sometimes anxiety can also cause "somatic symptoms". These are feelings like discomfort, pain, or physical changes that are caused by the brain trying to work overtime to resolve anxious thoughts. These sensations can feel the same as if they were from a physical cause and can add to the anxiety.
Help is available
Anxiety is not something to "tough out". It is often caused by factors like chemical imbalances that are best treated with therapy and/or medications.
What causes anxiety?
Almost anyone can develop anxiety in some form but here are some factors it is usually associated with:
Things that happened when you were young.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are events that happen during childhood that can have an impact on someone their whole life. Examples include being exposed to violence, neglect, drug or alcohol use, and several more. ACEs are associated with higher rates of anxiety and other types of mental health diagnoses.
Sometimes it's something you're born with.
Genetics can play a role in anxiety. This does not mean people born with those genetics are destined to get anxiety, but they can be more likely to develop it sometime in their life, especially if they have other risk factors.
Life can be really hard.
Big life changes can be hard on our minds. Things like death, breakups, financial changes, and many other experiences can worsen or cause dysfunctional anxiety. Even positive changes can cause stress that might bring about disruptive anxious symptoms.
Your mind and body are connected.
Physical conditions like autoimmune disorders and brain damage can cause changes in the body that increase anxiety risk. Also, having pain or discomfort from an illness or injury chips away at our resilience which can increase our odds of having disruptive anxious symptoms.
Things can add up.
There are several mental health conditions that can cause or worsen anxiety. Depression, ADHD, and personality disorders are a few that anxiety is common with.
Can we improve anxiety ourselves?
There are many factors that play into anxiety, but steps can be taken to help protect against or improve anxious tendencies like:
What treatments help anxiety?
There are medication and non medication based treatments that have been shown to help with anxiety.
Medication
Sometimes anxiety requires temporary medication intervention in order to get the best results from therapy. It is important to become established with a psychiatric professional in order to receive the right medication treatment for you (if needed).
Non-Medication
It is also important to consult with a mental health professional about non-medication treatments. Some may still require referral or a prescription. Examples of non-medication treatments include:
- Therapy
- Vitamin modification
- Sunlight/Red light
- Lifestyle changes
- Therapeutic groups
Which treatment is best?
It is important to find a mental health specialist that blends best practices and your personal preferences, to help create a treatment plan that works best for you.