Anxiety: Human's Undefeatable Enemy

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is often described as an endless feeling of worriedness towards something which keeps echoing in the mind of a person, along with fear of ‘what if, “how, “why, etc. It is mainly composed of thoughts that totally concerned to an individual who suffers from it. It is a consequential mental illness which controls the mind of a person, with which, might result on his/her unwanted behavior. Such unwanted behaviors can contribute into damaging and ruining one’s existence. Since then, anxiety is considered as a global problem which affects more than 3.6 % of world’s population or around 264 million individuals worldwide, according to World Health Organization. Furthermore, around 4.6% of females and 2.6% of males are suffering from anxiety globally.

Who are most likely to suffer from Anxiety? 

Most all of the people worldwide suffer from anxiety, but new research have shown that women, especially who are under at the age 35 are more prone to this disorder. Researchers have found that young female individuals, people with medical complications, and people with health issues are the ones who are high at risk from this. In some cases, male individuals also encountered this type of disorder, but they’re not more likely compared to women. Women tend to suffer far afar from this disorder because they worry more compared to men, feel more pain not just through emotional means, but also to bodily areas, show more of their feelings and affection, too serious in accordance with their feelings, far way have soft hearts, and ask more help unlike men.

Causes of Anxiety 

Anxiety knows no time, and thus, it attacks every time it wants, especially if you’re alone. The moment it attacks, you became uncomfortable, empty, and unconscious to your thoughts without even knowing how it started and the reasons behind it. Well, there are actually several reasons why it came to you, at the sudden time. These include:

• Trauma: Traumatic events affect one’s thinking and could possibly lead a person to fear that it will happen again. They’re sort of unwanted and unforgettable experiences that once happen to a person’s life, affected their entire existence, and leaving a plunging and penetrating injury to one’s existence. Furthermore, trauma can make someone produce different kinds of expressions due to the enigmatic emotions they have felt during the event. However, such repeated emotions and expressions can lead someone to suffer from anxiety and other mental illness.
• Several kinds of Stressors:

1. Stress at work: Loaded works and tasks make you feel more stress and even worry that what if you would not finish them all until the deadline. Worrying on what to do first, how to do the things, and even organizing them, in straight. This one will make your thoughts badly occupied that you want to explode. In the long run, not being able to finish your works or working too much can merely cause an anxiety.
2. Stress at School: Tons of school works and endless activities make the life of the students more difficult to deal with. Such loaded activities and performances make most students restless due to the fact that they have to finish them before the deadline. Some are prioritizing their school activities compared than their mental and physical health, which is not healthy at all. Restless body means restless brain, and thus resulting to drain your mind which may later cause anxiety.
3. Stress at Home: Home also contributed to stress which causes anxiety. It may be came from worrying the financial budget, controlling the member of family, getting too much or too little attention from the members of the family, family problems and other serious matters.

• Isolated Upbringing: Anxiety usually occurs during when you’re alone. This is the time where you don’t have someone to talk to, and thus the thoughts of your head are mixing up with others until you came up with those negative ones, and they started to affect the way you think. Loneliness can cause you too much distress and make you feel that you are a prison of your own thoughts.
• Sedentary Lifestyle: Inactive way of living contributes a lot of your mental health. When you’re inactive, you started to feel out that you have gained weight so much that you started to think about the thoughts that you are fat and started to compare yourself to others, which might feel you insecure and started to worry more.
• Parental Style: The way your parents raised you affected the way you think. Some parents are not responsible enough to take care of their children, fulfil their responsibilities, and provide the basic necessities which their children need, and in the long will make the children think if they’re worthy enough to be their child and even start to question themselves why they’re not lucky as others. There are also some parents who abandoned their children and thus passing them the responsibilities to live with their own and provide for their own needs which is considered as a totally devastating to every child especially when they’re only minors.
• Not Enough Sleep: “Sleep loss triggers the same brain mechanisms that make us sensitive to anxiety to begin with— regions that support emotional processing and also regions that support emotion regulation,” says Eti Ben-Simon, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley. Occasionally, our sleep pattern affects our behavior and even contributes to mood changes such as irritability, which in turn, opens the door of anxiety.
• Hormonal Imbalance: The relationship between hormonal imbalance and anxiety are closely associated with each other. Hormonal imbalance is considered as a major cause of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. Study reveals that low levels of hormones- thyroid and progesterone in women can lead to increased levels of stress and anxiety. Your body will demand a response from your adrenal glands the moment that you’ll become stressed.

Effects of Anxiety

Anxiety disorder can impact and influence your life once it triggers to you. These include:

• Heart Palpitations 

• Sweating 

• Restlessness 

• Having a hard time to sleep 

• Feeling alone 

• Feeling empty 

• Back pain 

• Dyspnea 

• Headache 

• Stomach pain, nausea, vomiting 

• Eating disorder 

• Depression 

• Suicidal thoughts 

• Unwanted behaviors 

• Heart problems 

• Gastrointestinal infections

• Loss of control 

• Indisposed feeling

Ways to Prevent Anxiety

Anxiety is highly treatable disorder. These ways are highly recommended in order to prevent and stop the stigma, which will latter save you from the worst nightmare.

• Keep a journal: List down your thoughts as many as you can, and include also those thoughts that are kept bothering you. Get a piece of paper or even notebook and a pen, then write down all the things that are consuming your head. In doing so, it can help you to organize your thoughts and in finding out what you are really feeling.
• Have someone to talk to: Having someone who can listen to your rants and endless thoughts are beyond crucial because it enables you to keep in touch and allowing your mind to engage onto something which will keep it busy, and thus not prone to anxiety. Open communication’s significance is beyond immense because it’s the major way that links one person to another. That’s the best way to connect someone you know, reach them when you’re alone and even share your problems to them so that it’ll be less heavy for you to carry on those things. Sometimes, it’s better to have someone to worry with than to worry all alone by yourself.
• Stay active: Being active both physically and mentally helps exercise your brain and renew your thoughts every single day. Physical exercises have several benefits just like reducing the risk of panic attacks and anxiety. Moving your body makes you feel boosted, and pumps your endorphins which are your body's natural pain reliever and produce happy hormones. On the other hand, several mental exercises had proven out that while you are mentally active, you are focused on what you’re doing, and thus, you block the other thoughts from entering your brain which may help ease anxiety and depression.
• Eat healthy foods: Eating healthy foods will give you the right nutrient to supply in your body and function properly. Such healthy foods contain vitamins and minerals that are good for your brain, and will keep it function along with good hormones that’ll keep you away from anxiety.
• Get enough sleep: Getting enough sleep is one of the major ways to reduce the activation of anxiety and depression to your brain. “Deep sleep had restored the brain's prefrontal mechanism that regulates our emotions, lowering emotional and physiological reactivity and preventing the escalation of anxiety,” reports Eti Ben Simon, a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley and the study's lead author.
• Limit the intake of alcohol and caffeine: Alcohol and caffeine are not good to your mental health. One will keep you wide awake or even think in an unreasonable way. Learn how to control of it; your mental health depends on it.
• Listen to songs: Whenever you feel sad or empty, listen to your favorite music because it can help you to relaxgyu7 and enjoy at the same time. When you don’t have someone to tall or listen, get your headphones and try to listen to the beauty of music and the rhythm it made which made your high pitch heartbeat at rest.

“Your mental health is as important as your physical health. One cannot function properly without having a stable one. So, don’t neglect it and try to listen what exactly it tells to you.” - Sarah Jane Sederiosa

 Written by Sarah Jane Sederiosa