So first of all, it's important to recognise that anxiety can have massive benefits. It can actually be used as a tool to improve our performance! Although that may seem like an obvious sort of statement, I had actually never really thought much about it. I'd always seen my anxiety as something negative that was interfering with my life and pushing me down.
Anxiety helps the body prepare for action. Symptoms include:
1) Vision becomes focused (pupils dilate)
1) REAL THREAT- fact
2) PERCEIVED THREAT- emotional response
We become anxious when we perceive threat. Anxiety is generated by how we perceive and think about situations. Some examples include change, negative thoughts, social tension, death, injury, rejection, judgement and loss.
The point of this post is to encourage people to recognise that anxiety is a NORMAL, NATURAL and NECESSARY human response. It is not dangerous (in fact, it helps us), and the more we understand about it, the easier it becomes to successfully manage our anxiety. Coming up I plan to make posts about a) different types of anxiety, and b) methods of managing anxiety. It's all really important information, so please share it with anybody you know- in a society with growing social, physical and mental stress levels we should all have the opportunity to learn about anxiety so we can cope in life.
Love always,
Em xx