This article explains how to reduce excessive worry, which can have mental and physical consequences.
Are you worried about a wart? Are you just nervous? Are you constantly worried about everything from your health to how you are perceived at work to whether a terrorist attack is imminent?
If this sounds like you, then you may be worried about your life. This is normal in principle, but excessive worrying affects more than just your mental state; it can also be detrimental to your physical health. That's why we're raising questions about the causes of excessive worry and ways to break the cycle and take back your life.
Do you experience fears within yourself and realize that you are screwing yourself up? What's the stupidest thing you've ever worried about?
What is anxiety
In recent years, the number of children suffering from some form of anxiety disorder has increased. This is due to many factors: a tense situation in families, immersion in the world of the Internet and gadgets, etc.
But for the most part, anxiety in children arises from the dissatisfaction of their age-related needs. Babies need a sense of security and the constant presence of their mother. Preschool children show increased anxiety in unfamiliar surroundings or are afraid of the dark. Teenagers need trust and respect, recognition of their right to their own opinion and freedom of choice.
Anxiety in psychological literature
This condition is described in many works of eminent psychologists. Thus, S. Freud identified three forms of anxiety:
- Real fear is a feeling of danger that some event or phenomenon carries.
- Neurotic anxiety is a fear of something unknown, irrational fear.
- Moral anxiety is a product of one’s own ego, that is, pangs of conscience, feelings of guilt, etc.
A. Adler considered the cause of increased anxiety to be a feeling of inferiority. But A. Prikhozhan explained this condition by the presence of emotional discomfort from a real or imaginary problem.
Anxiety. Why should you consult a psychologist if you have symptoms of anxiety?
Date of publication: 10/06/2020 From the life of the hospital
It is common for all of us to worry and worry. Some are worried about an upcoming trip to another city, some about an interview, some about difficulties in personal or work relationships, many are worried about financial problems and the health of loved ones. It’s probably normal to worry sometimes about important reasons. But if you constantly feel anxious, suffer from intrusive thoughts and insomnia, then you may be developing an anxiety disorder and need professional help. Denis Sevryugin told Stavropol residents how to distinguish ordinary anxiety from an anxiety disorder in the “For Health” program of the Svoe TV channel .
Denis Sevryugin is a guest of the “For Health” program.
Anxiety is a feeling caused by uncertainty about the future. We experience anxiety when we don’t really understand what lies ahead. “Household alarm” is even useful, noted Denis Sevryugin . It forces you to foresee the future several steps ahead, and thanks to this, anticipate and avoid problems and difficulties. “But if anxiety completely overwhelms a person and prevents him from realizing some plans, goals, dreams, then this is a sign of a pathological condition.”
And constant anxiety interferes with everyday life, creates internal restrictions, and makes adjustments to the usual daily routine. A person with an anxiety disorder may return home several times to check that the gas, water and iron are turned off. Due to anxiety and fear, he refuses many opportunities in work and personal life. The larger the restrictions you create for yourself, the more intense the experiences, the more difficult it is to cope with anxiety.
– Anxiety is a symptom. It can fit into the framework of different disorders. And here it is important for us to assess the human condition. In some cases this may be a neurosis, and in others it may be an element of a more severe psychotic disorder with different prognosis and treatment approaches. The sources that generate anxiety are different. It is better to contact a specialist who can help you sort this out.
The psychologist noted that everyone’s anxiety is associated with constant external influence. The more intense the level of information, workload, stress, the more often uncertainty, anxiety and fear arise. At some point, a person does not have enough strength to withstand this tension. Everyone has their own internal resource, after the exhaustion of which a pathological state of neurosis is already observed. When this happens depends only on the person himself. How he will react to what is happening is also influenced by factors of experience - these are those patterns of behavior, protective mechanisms that are formed in everyone during the course of development. We get a lot of it from our families. According to the psychologist, parents’ anxiety shapes the child’s behavior pattern: will he worry about little things, or will only serious problems be able to unbalance him?
How to distinguish everyday anxiety from serious disorders?
“We must understand the scale of the anxiety.” How much does it affect life, how much does it interfere, how long does it last. If it occurs sporadically, that’s one thing. If the condition is regularly recurring, that's a different story. What matters is the intensity of the experience and how much you can cope with it. Whether you manage to switch or not, you experience insomnia, eating disorders, loss of appetite, refusal of communication and sexual life.
There are different ways and practices to help overcome anxiety at home. For example, switch - take a cold shower, start breathing deeply, talk to someone, do some spring cleaning... The point of these actions is to force other areas of the brain to work in order to be distracted and less anxious. There are other approaches, but only a psychotherapist can help you select and implement them.
Whether it is worth seeking professional help is up to the person to decide for himself. But if concerns arise, nothing prevents him from going to a psychologist. It will help you figure out what the sources and causes of anxiety are. And after the consultation, it will become clear: is only this understanding enough for you, or do you need therapy.
– First of all, each person needs to understand what his anxiety is connected with. And then you can find a suitable way to solve this problem for yourself. You need to know about your anxiety. The more you know about it, the easier it will be for you to deal with it. Because understanding is what works against anxiety and uncertainty. The more clarity you have, the less anxiety you have.
Full version of the interview.
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Forms of increased anxiety
There are two forms of childhood anxiety:
- Open. The child consciously experiences certain emotions and demonstrates them through his behavior.
- Hidden. When the child himself does not realize that he is experiencing anxiety. This may manifest itself in excessive calmness, apathy, or even denial of any discomfort.
The second type of anxiety is much less common; its main symptom is considered to be the so-called “inadequate calm.” The child is so worried that he carefully hides it and demonstrates complete calm and detachment from the situation.
Levels
The level of anxiety determines a person’s perception and reaction to life situations. The most popular way to determine the level is the Spielberg-Hanin test, which assesses the degree of situational and personal anxiety in specific situations.
More than 9,000 people have gotten rid of their psychological problems using this technique.
The types and levels of anxiety are not interrelated in any way: these are two separate classifications of the same disorder. Also, no connection has been established between them and the patient’s temperament.
In psychiatry, weak, medium, increased, and high levels are distinguished.
Weak
A weak level indicates that a person has problems adapting to change. He can be confident that the team will treat him well, while those around him try to avoid him.
Someone who has a low level of anxiety does not think about how to get rid of anxiety. But relaxation, inattention to detail, inability to concentrate, refusal to perceive differences between situations often play a cruel joke.
The level of anxiety can be inherited from parents: the human genome contains mechanisms that determine the body’s response to stimuli.
Average
The average level is typical for people with mature thinking. With it, a person perceives changes and reacts to them in a timely manner. This level of anxiety is enough to make optimal decisions for a particular situation and, if necessary, change them.
At the same time, difficulties are not perceived as a tragedy - the reaction to them is moderate. If problems lead to temporary stupor, then a little later, having gotten used to new conditions, a person will still mobilize his strength.
Elevated
Increased anxiety manifests itself only in specific situations. A person's emotional state is relatively stable, but under some circumstances he experiences inexplicable anxiety.
The attacks are usually easy to cope with. They are often of a compensable nature: fearing mistakes, a person checks the work several times or performs a given action, honing it to perfection. With proper self-help and psychotherapy, the degree of influence of negative factors will gradually decrease.
In some cases, the elevated level becomes high.
How to understand that a child has increased anxiety
To help parents - a small self-diagnosis test. Read these statements and think about how they apply to your child. Pay attention to the degree of expression of each point. Single manifestations do not indicate anything, but regular cases, and even with a tendency to worsen, indicate a problem.
So, increased anxiety is present if the child:
- afraid of everything new, unknown;
- tense, constrained, reacts sharply to any unpleasant little thing;
- not confident in himself;
- gets tired quickly;
- absent-minded, performs meaningless actions;
- prone to negativism, sees only the bad in people and events;
- passive, apathetic, difficult to captivate him with anything;
- reacts poorly to criticism;
- feels guilty even in cases where he is not objectively guilty;
- criticizes other people for the slightest mistake;
- complains of bad thoughts, scary dreams;
- sleeps poorly, has difficulty falling asleep;
- cries often;
- cannot bear waiting (for example, in a queue);
- avoids any difficulties
Causes of strong feelings
There are no specific parameters by which increased anxiety (and the degree of this increase) is diagnosed.
It has been established that the tendency to experience excessively strong emotions can be inherited. However, more often there is a negative perception of life due to the experience of a particular individual. Upbringing, events experienced, moments seen (even from films, television programs) leave their imprint.
It happens that an increase in individual anxiety indicates the development of a mental illness, in which case specialists pay attention to the underlying cause. If there is no precipitating disorder, then the psychologist studies and treats the experiences of a particular person.
Sources and causes of anxiety
It is necessary to fight not only the manifestations of anxiety in children, but also the causes of its occurrence. Even correctly selected and timely psychotherapy will not bring results if the child is under the influence of stress factors every time. It will not be possible to get out of this state until the sources of anxiety are eliminated.
Family
— In dysfunctional families, children are anxious and aggressive, they have low self-esteem and at the same time a great desire to prove to the world that they are better than others.
— The child’s inconsistency with the aspirations and plans of his parents. The phrases “How you disappointed me!” or “Everyone in our family has a higher education, but you’re good for nothing” really hits the child’s self-esteem and makes him afraid of not conforming to family traditions.
“The anxiety of parents also infects their children. If a mother reacts violently to any wrongdoing, is afraid of everything and frightens the child with terrible consequences, he will begin to think the same way.
— Strict upbringing, inflexibility, and overprotection create in the child the feeling that nothing depends on him. All that remains for him is to be a doll of his domineering parents. This causes anxiety and internal protest, and with them anxiety.
School
— Poor performance is like a snowball. Having once again received a low grade, the child becomes convinced that he is not capable of studying well. This reduces motivation: “I’m a bad student, but oh well, not everyone can be smart.” But if at the same time the child has ambitions, he develops anxiety due to the discrepancy between the results of his studies and his aspirations.
— By scolding a child for bad grades, parents neutralize the value of knowledge. The very purpose of education is changing. It becomes only a tool for obtaining parental approval and a cause of anxiety if the grades are not as high as we would like.
Friends
— Some children communicate with peers for fun. Others do it to please their own fears and complexes. The fear of being rejected by a certain social group makes you become dependent on friends and their opinions.
— An anxious child may himself reject a group of children. It seems to him that he will be offended there and not understood, so he avoids any communication and feels uncomfortable in a group.
High level of personality anxiety and how to deal with it
Anxiety is an emotional experience associated with a feeling of danger, excessive worry and fear. It is worth noting that a high degree of anxiety can be situational in nature, or it can be inherent in a person’s personality.
An increased level of personality anxiety is a person’s tendency to experience anxiety based on their own individual traits.
Such anxiety manifests itself not only in human behavior. It also creates a certain unfavorable background for the psyche, which does not have the best effect on the life of the body.
High anxiety in adults affects quality of life. It is difficult for such persons to achieve success in their careers, personal lives, and relationships with people. However, you can fight this.
How to reduce a high level of personal anxiety in an adult?
Of course, this cannot be done without the help of doctors. After all, the human psyche is a very delicate thing, work with which should only be trusted to professionals. Be prepared for the fact that you will have to visit the doctor not for 2 weeks, but much longer. But life without constant anxiety is worth it.
How to quickly relieve anxiety in a child
Sometimes you need to overcome anxiety here and now. For example, getting ready before a performance or getting ready to go to the doctor. Use the method of the French teacher M. Borba for this. These are simple exercises to quickly relieve stress. Perform them in combination or separately:
- Come up with a phrase that increases self-confidence in a stressful situation. For example: “This will end soon,” “I can handle it,” “I’m safe,” or “Mom is here.”
- Do breathing exercises: take a deep breath through your nose, quickly exhale through your mouth. Teach your child to breathe alternately from the chest to the stomach. Use elevator breathing: after a few deep breaths, close your eyes and imagine that you are in an elevator going down. At this time, hold your breath. As soon as the elevator arrives, you can open your eyes, breathe in and feel that the tension has decreased.
- Teach your child to identify where his stress is. Usually this is the neck, head, lower jaw. Let him tense the muscles of this part of the body several times, and then relax.
- Visualize a comfortable place where the child feels good and calm. For example, in the dentist's chair, let him imagine that he is on a sunny beach, swimming and sunbathing. Taking your thoughts elsewhere will allow you to escape from reality and move through the procedure more calmly.
Treatment for Anxiety Disorder
The doctor makes a diagnosis if the patient worries too much about simple things and this condition lasts at least 6 months. The correct approach and diagnosis will help the doctor easily determine whether symptoms of increased anxiety are caused by a somatic disorder or an anxiety disorder. An illness caused by a physical condition—alcohol or drugs—can sometimes be cured if these problems are removed first.
There are many techniques aimed at treating this disease. As usual, medications are used, as well as psychotherapy sessions. The duration of treatment directly depends on the patient’s personal preferences and the scale of the problem.
Psychotherapy
Medicines help keep the disease under control, while the patient undergoes a psychotherapy session. The drugs used to treat such conditions are, of course, prescribed by a psychiatrist. These include beta blockers, various sedatives and simple antidepressants.
