What is Anxiety?
Understanding the various answers behind the question is the first step toward taking control of your physical and psychological reactions to certain stimuli.
The American Psychological Association describes anxiety as “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes, like increased blood pressure.”
Now, if you’ve ever struggled with symptoms of an anxiety disorder, you know that the effects often encompass so much more than just that. On the surface, anxiety is a normal and even healthy emotion. What starts as a necessary reaction to a threatening or potentially dangerous stimulus becomes problematic when the effects of anxiety do not dissipate upon resolution of the threat – this disconnect between external stimuli and internal reaction is one of the most common causes of anxiety disorders. In today’s society, anxiety is not nearly as primal as it once was. Instead of experiencing these feelings of tension, worry, and stress in the rare life-or-death scenario, we experience them in regards to work, money, family, relationships, and a variety of other factors we face on a day-to-day basis.
