Anxiety, perhaps closely followed more recently by the word ‘trauma’, are words that can be commonly overused in counselling and psychotherapy circles. Anxiety is a term that is even more dominant in mental health settings when you look at the news. For example, the US Preventive Services Task Force, an independent volunteer panel of experts in disease prevention and evidence-based medicine, recently urged GPs and family doctors to look out for “excessive fear or worry” in their consultations with patients. The Task Force also highlighted the need to guard against the onset of mental disorders and suicidal thoughts in their patients. Additionally the Task Force issued similar guidance regarding children and teenagers seeking to avoid the possibility of mental health disorders going undetected.
So what is anxiety?
Anxiety is a feeling of unease, perhaps worry or fear, that can manifest as mild or severe. There are, of course, several forms of anxiety, including generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and social anxiety, but all forms are typically characterised by excessive fear or worry. There are many, including lots of practitioners in my own profession, who believe that medicalising normal human emotions like this is regressive and, therefore, unhelpful to people. Anxiety, as a term, and as something deemed appropriate to treat, can potentially sow the seeds of division amongst practitioners in therapy. *Please bear in mind that you need to see a suitably qualified medical professional in order to receive a diagnosis.
Why are anxiety levels increasing?
Increasing levels of anxiety could be from the residual impact of what we’ve endured from the recent past. We are living through a particularly challenging time. The pandemic brought about much emotional suffering in the form of illness, loss, bereavement, social isolation and loneliness. The current social environment has seen financial hardship and uncertainty about the future of personal and family economic viability, chased by spiralling inflation, declining values of currency and pensions, and a world that appears to be more and more unstable. The nature/nurture debate comes into play here too, as some can be prone to worry, with genetics and personality type offering some explanation, whilst others will have experience of trauma, and being raised by anxious parents.
Healthy versus unhealthy anxiety
Anxiety becomes dysfunctional when it stops being helpful. This might sound like the most obvious thing to say about emotional well-being and mental health in general. However, anxiety serves its purpose when we are under real threat. Human evolution has given us our ancient survival system, which was designed to keep us safe from predators on the savannah. The trouble is that this system has not adapted very well with advances in civilisations. Our fight/flight response can get activated when we’re not actually in danger, but under perceived danger. We perhaps need to have our survival system triggered and activated when we are faced with a wild animal running towards us in a narrow alleyway. In that scenario we may receive a surge of adrenaline to help us to either flee or deal physically with the threat being presented. Anxiety, in that instance, is a response to fear, when adrenaline starts to pump around the body and this could be viewed as healthy. It is healthy because we need to have our radar online to assess danger and to be primed to take action to ensure survival.
Unhealthy worry could be when there is no obvious threat present yet we experience physiological symptoms such as feeling uptight in parts of our bodies, having a faster beating heart, suffering from more headaches than normal or generally feeling unwell. With GAD there can be multifaceted worries that get in the way of living your life. Cognitive symptoms can be feeling as if your mind is in overdrive, in a constant state of worrying, and you enter a cycle of catastrophising.
Seeking help for anxiety
It could be helpful to have a discussion with your family doctor if you are particularly worried about your state of mind. Your doctor might arrange for the taking of bloods, just so other conditions can be ruled out. They will most likely also recommend grounding techniques for your anxiety. Consciously breathing more slowly can help to send your body into an unaroused state. Managing the physical side of anxiety is as helpful as managing the mental side.
In therapy, you could seek to uncover how your avoidances might have compounded your anxieties and find out how your survival system gets triggered and activated. Learning to address legacy behaviours could help you to return to your untriggered state more easily. Legacy behaviours are most likely maladaptive in their nature, as you have learned to deal with past emotional wounding by seeking to avoid the experiencing of any more discomfort. Letting go of these behaviours can be daunting but can also be transformative.
Noel Bell is a UKCP accredited psychotherapist based in London and can be contacted on 07852407140