First of all, before we begin to describe what the signs and symptoms of anxiety are, let’s first establish what anxiety is and its purpose. Anxiety is a survival mechanism. It exists to remove any recognized danger from our environment by either fighting it or running away from it.
A few thousand years ago, when man was a hunter-gatherer looking for food in the great outdoors, anxiousness played a really important function in preventing our ancestor from turning into some animal’s next meal. If and when faced with some ferocious beast, anxiety would come into play and give our great, great, great etc. grandparent the wherewithal to either stand and battle the threat or to run away to some safe haven.
In order for this battle or flight mechanism to be efficient, certain physiological and psychological changes are temporarily made. These are as follows:
1. Body hair stands on end to provide an overall appearance of being bigger.
2. Sweating starts to occur in the hands and feet to allow a better grip whilst running and/or climbing.
3. Adrenalin is launched into the bloodstream to provide an all-important increase of power.
4. The body’s normal functions of digestion and cell repair are put on hold and the resources are re-directed to the muscles to improve strength.
5. Under intense conditions, the body will excrete in order to reduce weight.
6. Normal breathing is changed by much shallower breathing and also the heart rate raises.
7. Both sight and hearing are increased.
8. Psychologically, there will be a feeling of discomfort and agitation. This may increase as essential in order to initialise some sort of motion.
So, looking at the above example of our stone-age hunter, we are able to clearly see that anxiety was indeed a very essential part of their day-to-day existence and no doubt it was crucial in saving quite a couple of lives at that point in our evolution.
However, how on earth can such a mechanism be helpful to us in our current society? In particular situations, such as when the job that you are working on is quickly running out of time, anxiety will help you to concentrate better by growing your sight and hearing perceptions and also the adrenalin will give you much more power to complete the job. I critically doubt, though, that this kind of a low level of anxiousness would trigger involuntary excretion.
Nevertheless, there are other situations where anxiety rears its head and it is not appropriate. Imagine that you’re late for work and that you are stuck in traffic. No matter how anxious you feel the traffic won’t flow any faster and as for running away from or fighting the perceived threat that would be impossible.
It’s situations similar to the latter that may bring about anxiety problems in particular people. I know, I used to suffer from an anxiety disorder together with panic disorder and agoraphobia for many years. Till, after many years of searching, I discovered the cure.
[youtube:rwGFAkPdZO4;[link:Anxiety Cures];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwGFAkPdZO4&feature=related]
If you want more information on anxiety cures, don’t read just rehashed articles online to avoid getting ripped off. Go here: What Causes Anxiety