What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a normal human experience which activates in response to stress, whether the stressor is real or perceived. Anxiety can be helpful for helping us pay attention, prepare for something and motivating us to work toward accomplishing a goal or task. If you're feeling anxious, there is nothing wrong with you! Your body is trying to protect itself in the most primal way it knows how.

 

Anxiety can become unhelpful and disruptive to daily life when it goes into overdrive, perceiving everything in our environment as a threat. This can lead to excessive worry, feeling on edge/tense, difficulty concentrating, excessive fatigue, sleep problems. 

 

As we know from research on the stress-disease connection, our bodies cannot thrive in a constant state of stress. If anxiety symptoms go untreated, it can lead to anxiety disorders such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, or Social Anxiety Disorder, and even physical health conditions such as chest pains, sweating, feeling dizzy, stomach pains, and heart palpitations.