Anxiety affects different people in different ways. The many common symptoms and signs vary, and most of them are unpleasant and can feel debilitating, or even life threatening, especially when they ‘sneak up on you unawares’.
There are endless resources available online regarding anxiety disorder, its different forms, symptoms and remedies. The best way to understand it if you’re a sufferer, is to start noticing specifically how it manifests in your own mind, body and life. Then you can learn how to calm down the symptoms one by one.
Specific symptoms that affect your breathing, digesion, heart rate and thoughts are often a sign that your ‘survival’ part of your brain is misinterpreting what’s actually happening around you, sending out false signals of panic and alarm.
In this fast-paced usually stressful world, most adults have experienced some symptoms of anxiety, so it’s more common than you might think. Furtunately, we now have some new, and better ways of dealing with it than were available even just a few years ago. Two of these are Mindfulness and Havening.
This article from Newstatesman highlights the author’s personal experience with anxiety, how he dealt with it and better controlled the situation.
Understanding anxiety – my inside view of a debilitating disorder and how to control it
As I stepped out of the office one evening after a routine day at work, I found myself glued to the floor. Legs bolted, knees quivering, heart racing – I was cemented into the ground by something paralysing. I had to work out what was happening, and fast.