Do you feel anxiety in the hustle and bustle of your daily life ? For example, do you worry before taking a test because you are not sure you are adequately prepared? On your way to a job interview? When you need to give a presentation at an important meeting at work? Most likely your answer will be yes. Well, have you ever thought about what anxiety is and what it does?
What is Anxiety?
The equivalent of anxiety in clinical psychology and psychiatry is referred to as ‘ anxiety ‘. Anxiety is a negative emotion that goes with worry about the future and physical tension. 1 This emotion has mental (cognitive), physical and behavioral manifestations. The person experiencing anxiety thinks about the negative consequences and the problems that these results will create. He experiences muscle tension and an acceleration in heartbeat. Prepares or engages in different coping strategies to protect himself or herself from a possible negative outcome.
Function of Anxiety
Since anxiety, or anxiety, which is no longer in our daily language, is not an emotion that one enjoys to experience, why do people always feel this emotion when they are doing something important? Interestingly, anxiety is an emotion that has an important function for us. Anxiety arises because people’s ability to plan in detail for the future causes them to anticipate and prepare for possible negative consequences. In other words, this emotion prepares one’s mind and body to deal with a negative outcome or danger that may be encountered in the future. ideal level of anxietyIt is a well-known phenomenon in the field of psychology that they perform better when they experience it. A person performs better by studying for exams with the anxiety of failing the course. Enters interviews or presentations with the concern of getting or maintaining a job.
So, does a person succeed when he is very anxious? Although anxiety is a useful emotion, when experienced at high levels, it negatively affects one’s performance. In a way, excessive anxiety is like a car that’s out of control at speeding. A person who worries excessively in the exam has difficulty in concentrating and cannot transfer his thoughts to paper. The person who is overly anxious in an interview cannot focus on the questions asked and cannot give the desired answers in the answers. The person who is overly anxious in a presentation may sweat and the flow and content of the speech is disrupted.
What is fear?
At this point, perhaps it would be appropriate to make a distinction between anxiety and fear . Fear is an emotional response triggered in the face of an obvious threat or danger. That is, while anxiety is an ongoing mood towards a perceived threat in the future , fear is the momentary response to a current perceived threat.It is an emotional response. Fear, like anxiety, is an emotion that protects the person. By activating the body in the face of a danger, it pushes the person to get rid of the threat by escaping or fighting it. For example, when you see a car speeding towards you while crossing the street, your body becomes alarmed, you perceive fear, and you try to escape from the car by throwing yourself across the street quickly. This reaction, which occurs in the face of threat in humans and animals, is called the flight-or-fight response .
Anxiety Becomes a Problem: Anxiety Disorders
Most of the problems defined in clinical psychology and psychiatry involve the feeling of anxiety. However, since the focus of some problems is anxiety, they are included in the classification of psychiatric problems under the name of ‘ Anxiety Disorders ‘ or ‘ Anxiety Disorders ‘. These problems include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, specific phobia and social anxiety disorder, as well as separation anxiety disorder and selective speech in children. oneThese problems, which are seen at different rates but frequently in the society, cause distress in people and cause disruptions in their family, social and professional lives. Many people may develop more than one anxiety disorder. In fact, they may alternate between different anxiety problems throughout their lives. Also, people with anxiety disorders often develop depression as an additional problem. 2 These are problems that require treatment.
Causes of Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders
The mechanisms of emergence of psychological problems are explained by multidimensional theoretical approaches today. Such an approach argues that biological, psychological, and social factors interact to cause anxiety and similar emotional problems. 3
Scientific studies show that genetic and neurobiological factors contribute to personality and temperament characteristics associated with anxiety disorders. 3, 4 Some people are born more prone to being anxious and nervous. However, these characteristics are not sufficient reason for them to develop an anxiety problem. How these traits interact with various psychological and social factors is important. Perhaps the most important psychological factor underlying anxiety problems is the person’s perception of whether stressful life events are controllable and whether they can cope with the consequences of these events. 3, 5 People’s perceptions of controlThey range from complete confidence that all aspects of their life are under their control and that they can cope with the consequences of events, to complete uncertainty. Childhood negative life experiences and parental behaviors play an important role in the development of people’s perception of control. People with a high perception of threat, perceiving the threat as uncontrollable, and believing that they cannot cope with the consequences, have a general predisposition to develop anxiety problems. On the other hand, since childhood, people learn that some situations, objects, physical symptoms are dangerous (even if they are not really dangerous) by experiencing, seeing or hearing. 3For example, a child observing a mother who worries and complains about her bodily symptoms may learn that bodily symptoms are dangerous. This learning background also creates a more pronounced psychological predisposition. Anxiety problems are triggered when a person with a predisposition to these three arms experiences stressful life events. Stressful life events that trigger anxiety problems can be negative events such as loss of a loved one, divorce, work / school stress, as well as positive events such as marriage, having a child, and promotion.
