Common Symptoms Of Anxiety
Over the years, I have heard the label ‘anxiety’ used often. General practitioners diagnose patient’s symptoms as ‘anxiety’. Anxiety symptoms can differ from one person to another. However, there are some symptoms that are more common than others; Quickening of the heartbeat, a shortness of breath, perspiration and trembling of the limbs, amongst others.
Anxiety In The Stone Age
I feel it is important to explain the history of why we may experience these signs of unease. Lets take a journey back in time to the Neolithic period where cavemen and women lived in dangerous environments. Some say that we evolved to stay weary of our surroundings and to be aware of threats to our life. At this time, there were many dangerous predators, so it was imperative to stay alert in order to stay safe.
For instance, if a caveman came face to face with a big ravenous saber tooth tiger, what do you think he would do? What would you do? Would you run away and hide? stand still in shock? or would you attempt to fight the beast? As the caveman is staring at the predator, his brain is sending signals to his body and flooding his system with adrenaline. Adrenaline could help to fight off the saber tooth tiger but it could also fuel the body to run as fast as possible. That being said, your body could just become overwhelmed by the whole experience and pause. All of these are your body’s natural responses to a threat…to fear. This is called the Fight, Flight or Freeze response.
Now that you have some brief history of the evolution of the brain’s responses, let’s fast forward to the present.
Our Modern Day ‘Predators’
Even though it’s been a long time since cavemen and cave women roamed the earth, our brain still responds to a threat in the same way. Adrenaline still pumps through our veins helping us to respond one way or another. What has changed is what we consider a threat to be. Of course, we would still feel the threat from a dangerous predator such as a tiger, but we now have a much safer environment to hide us from such things. Nowadays, we may consider threats to be things such as our workplace, social media, relationships, education, health, fertility, the threat of our hard work not being noticed, not being ‘good enough’ etc. Anxiety seems to be rooted with a fear of something.
Fear can be explored in counselling sessions and can help you to address, accept and overcome them. In my practice, Anxiety is often linked with low self esteem as with today’s modern world we tend to rely on other people’s opinions about us rather than our own. Pressure to perform at a certain level increases and we feel threatened and forced to compete not only with others but with ourselves too.
Treatment For Anxiety
Many people who experience these symptoms, some more intensely than others, often find they are not ‘at their best’ in their everyday life. In these cases, medication is offered by a general practitioner as treatment. However, in practice I find that some clients combine Counselling and medication. Others have better results focusing solely on counselling. Clients can learn various new coping strategies that can help to rewire our brains natural responses and make new neurolinks. This builds on our body’s reaction based on previous experience, but it takes time to develop so be patient with the process if you are receiving treatment. The more we practice new coping strategies, the more experience our brains will identify as an alternative response.
Remember, if you are experiencing anxiety and are struggling to manage it reach out to someone you can talk to. Whether that is a Counsellor, friend, a GP or a family member. Our mental health is important!
If you have any thoughts on this subject, then I would love to hear them. Please feel free to leave a comment below.
Have a wonderful day!
