Anxiety and Fear

            Practically everybody you’ve ever encountered has experienced their fair share of fear, or nervousness, or anxiousness, associated with a slew of life factors that you are almost guaranteed to have in common to some degree. The responses that cause us to isolate from others, or to position us against others, are the same responses which have the potential to bring us closer as people.

             Though I’m sure whoever reading this has dealt with fear or anxiety in the past, I think it’s important to differentiate between the two. Surely, we know what they feel like, but in understanding the underlying processes, we can assert greater control over how we react to these feelings.

             Fear is not only common, it’s necessary. The reason we are a part of society as we know it today is due to the fact that our ancestors were able to use our fear response for survival. This fear is adaptive, and keeps alert to the things that pose us danger, the things that could potentially cut short our opportunities to carry on our legacies as humans. We see a possible threat, appraise it as dangerous, and our body takes over. Maybe your heart rate increases, you begin to perspire, or you notice your muscles get tense. We are prepared to either take the threat head on, or to flee from it to get to a place of safety.

            Some of those physical responses look very similar when we get anxious over something. We could start breathing heavier, get dry mouth, maybe have some stomach issues, or nausea, or shortness of breath. With fear and anxiety’s manifestations looking so similar, sometimes people struggle to differentiate the two, only resulting in greater physical symptomology.

             In the simplest way, anxiety is fear in the absence of obvious danger. We are primed to go to war with a feuding tribe over territory, and we are prepared to sprint to shelter away from saber-toothed tigers. While our environment has changed drastically from then to now, the body has not adapted to take into account the level of threat it currently faces on a regular basis. The things that most often provoke our symptoms do not require us to flee or fight. They require us to maintain control, which becomes all the more difficult when our bodies are prepared for life or death scenarios.

            For anybody who has read this far and deals with anxiety that produces significant impairment or distress, please seek appropriate mental health care to begin taking back control of your life. For those who just want to get a better grasp of the situations that provoke some of these fear responses, the methodology between therapy and coaching is quite similar.

 Take notice that the physical symptoms are not coming out of nowhere. Something, either internal or external, served to provoke them. We can use breathing techniques, sensory awareness, progressive muscle relaxation, and a number of other proven techniques to minimize the impact of the body’s natural response to stress. We can also work cognitively to recognize that the threat does not warrant the response. Our bodies will eventually return to a state of equilibrium, and the better we get at assuring ourselves of that, the quicker that equilibrium will be achieved.