Anxiety 101
The terms “stress” and “anxiety” are thrown around a lot these days, and sometimes interchangeably, but what do these terms actually mean? Is there a difference between them? Why do they matter?
If you’re living in the United States today (and I’m sure in many other countries, although I can only speak for my own lived experience), you are probably well aware of the rise in mental health concerns that seems to be co-occurring with the glorification of “being busy” and the pressures of working in a capitalistic society. You or people you know might be suffering from anxiety, which is actually one of the most common forms of mental distress in the US. Currently, 40 million people over the age of 18 (which is 18.1% of our country’s population!) suffer from an anxiety disorder. I would argue that this makes anxiety an overwhelming health crisis, one that we need to pay more attention to. Thus, it’s helpful to know more about what anxiety is, how to recognize it in friends and loved ones, and how to best manage it (part two of this blog series).
Evolutionary Underpinnings of Anxiety
Anxiety is a complex, natural physiological process that has evolved in our human nervous system over the centuries since our cave people days. Early on in the history of our species, surviving each day was key objective #1. There were so many seriously life-threatening dangers in the environment that the human body had to develop a good way to detect these threats and react quickly to be able to survive. This evolutionary process led to what we now called the “Fight of Flight Response.”
A small, almond shaped part of the brain called the amygdala is the main command center of the fight or flight response. Simply put, as the brain filters through the input that it gets from the outside world (i.e., through the five senses), this information then very quickly travels to the amygdala, where the data is interpreted to determine whether something in the environment is a threat or not a threat.
If the brain determines that there is a threat, it sends very quick signals to the rest of the body through the sympathetic nervous system to prepare the body to either fight off the threat (think about a lion defending itself with its strength, teeth, and claws), to run away from the threat (a good example here is the gazelle, which can run so fast as to outrun a cheetah), or to freeze and essentially “play dead” (our friendly possum is a great animal kingdom example of using the freeze response in nature, because most other animals don’t want to eat something that might be rancid).
The body prepares for this fight, flight, or freeze response through a series of hormones that get triggered during this process. These stress hormones (commonly called an “adrenaline rush”) work to raise the body’s blood pressure, speed up heart rate and breathing, halt digestive processes, and cause a surge in blood sugar (i.e., energy), among other necessary processes.
This process is all well and good if, say, you find yourself face to face with a saber-toothed tiger. However, in this day and age, we don’t meet many tigers. Yet evolution is a slow enough process that it hasn’t caught up to the fact that we may not have as many actual life-threatening situations in our daily lives to contend with. The same brain and body processes, then, that are great in these life or death situations, instead get played out in situations like driving a car on a busy highway, having to give a presentation, going on a first date, or performing in front of a crowd, to name a few. And this experience becomes what we now know as anxiety – the biological and physiological response to what is viewed as stressors (i.e., threats) in our environment.
Types of Anxiety
There are actually two broad types of anxiety, which are called eustress and distress. We can view eustress as being more positive and helpful. This type of anxiety often motivates us, helps us focus our energy, feels exciting, improves performance, and is generally short-term and perceived as within our coping abilities. Examples of eustress might be the butterflies a person experiences before meeting up with a new crush, the energy a swimmer feels as they step up to the pool before they dive in, or the thrill a performer experiences as they walk on stage for a show. This type of stress is necessary in our lives to keep us from being stagnant and is generally not what we tend to be thinking about as we contemplate the terms stress and anxiety.
On the other hands, distress tends to feel unpleasant, cause more of the fight or flight physiological symptoms, can decrease performance, might cause mental and/or physical issues, can be either short- or long-term, and is generally perceived as being outside of our abilities to cope. The difference between distress and eustress can be demonstrated on this stress-performance curve.
On the left side of the curve, if we don’t experience enough stress, our performance suffers. This could correspond to sluggishness, fatigue, difficulties concentrating, apathy and indifference, or even full-blown depression. On the other side of the curve lies distress – inability to make decisions, panic attacks, hypervigilance, OCD, and even PTSD. On the upswing of the curve, then, is eustress and where we want to strive to be to feel optimally alert and motivated to perform our best.
Recognizing Anxiety
Beyond having a similar physiological reaction, people can display a wide range of physical and emotional symptoms of anxiety that look different for each person. Maybe you recognize some of these symptoms in yourself or in your loved ones.
Anxiety can include physical symptoms, like muscle tension, increased heart rate and blood pressure, difficulty breathing or rapid breathes, sweating, cold or tingling in the hands and feet, dry mouth, nausea or other digestive issues, tension in the jaw or grinding of teeth, and headaches. Anxiety often manifests mentally and emotionally as well, through feelings of worry, nervousness, irritability, restlessness, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, mental fog, sadness, fear, and irrational or unhelpful thinking. Lastly, we act out anxiety through being easily startled, crying, decreased sleep, loss of appetite, increasing alcohol or drug use, withdrawing from friends and family, missing work or class, increasing conflict with those around us, and avoiding situations or people that can trigger the anxiety.
Clinically, mental health professionals have identified a number of specific anxiety presentations, which collective are referred to as Anxiety Disorders. These disorders represent anxiety that has reached a level as to be distressing to the individual and disruptive to their functioning in important areas of life. Specific disorders include the more well-known ones, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as other presentations such as Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Specific Phobia, Agoraphobia, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
An individual can have good success in managing a moderate level of anxiety on their own, and you can read tips for doing so in part two of this blog series. But if your anxiety is becoming unmanageable, is disruptive to your life, or you’d like more guidance in how to deal with it, it may be time to get reach out to a trained mental health professional for help. If you live in Austin and are interested in meeting with me to discuss your anxiety concerns, you can reach out to our scheduling team at Deep Eddy Psychotherapy (512-956-6463) or to me directly via phone or email (contact information available on my website).