Awareness Happening Anytime, -nywhere!
anxiety
- Do you often feel nervous?
- Do you find yourself going over things in your mind over and over?
- Does worry affect most parts of your life?
- Does the fear of failure prevent you from trying new things?
- More often than not, do you make mountains out of mole hills?
- Do you experience heart palpitations, increased perspiration, rapid breathing, and/or “jelly legs” when you’re in new situations?
Anxiety, according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2006), is “distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear, tension, or apprehension.” I like to think of anxiety as a whole person, fear response to a perceived and/or actual threat to self or others.
Underlying the definitions for anxiety are four assumptions:
- Anxiety is a normal reaction to real threats: a lack of anxiety in some cases is abnormal and can even be deadly.
- Everyone experiences moments of anxiety: not everyone lives in a pervasive and perpetual state of anxiety.
- Anxiety has physiological, psychological, social, and cultural components.
- Anxiety is manageable.
With these general definitions and assumptions in mind, I would like to offer specific information about specific categories of anxiety. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision, there are ten anxiety disorders:
- Panic Disorder: An experience characterized by a discrete period of sudden, intense fear associated with feelings of impending catastrophe. During an attack, people often experience shortness of breath, chest pain/discomfort, smothering/choking sensations, and a pervasive sense of losing control.
- Agoraphobia: An experience characterized by a fear of situations or places where escape might be challenging or embarrassing.
- Panic Disorder with/without Agoraphobia: Sometimes these two disorders co-occur.
- Agoraphobia Without History of Panic Disorder: An experience characterized by agoraphobia and panic like symptoms without a history of unexpected panic attacks.
- Specific Phobia: An experience characterized by fear, worry, and apprehension of specific object or situation leading to avoidance.
- Social Phobia: an experience wherein a person avoids social or performance situations.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: An experience wherein a person obsesses about something distressing and then engages in a behavior to neutralize the distress.
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: An experience characterized by re-experiencing of an extremely traumatic event accompanied by increased distress and avoidance things associated with the trauma.
- Acute Stress Disorder: An experience similar to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder that occurs immediately following a traumatic event.
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder: An experience characterized by at least 6 months of persistent and excessive worry or anxiety.
If you would like to deepen your awareness of your anxiety experiences and want to learn how to manage them, please click to email Heath Hightower to purchase your AHA!: Anxiety Toolkit.