Tendency to worry is called anxiety and it is a feeling of uneasiness and fear we all experience at some point in our lives. Anxiety many a times is associated with change. We are anxious before accepting or embracing change. Thus it is the most basic and natural response to a challenging situation. In fact it is a perfectly normal and healthy response or a feeling that brings out the best in us and helps us to adept better and become stronger.
Our Stone Age ancestors must have learnt to protect themselves from wild animals or may have started to live in communities or may have started farming as a result of anxiety of being killed, moving etc. In the process they became stronger and evolved. This became possible because they acknowledged the problem behind this feeling of anxiety and decided to solve it. Anxiety thus can help us to rise and face challenges. However anxiety becomes a medical condition when people show signs of over sensitivity to worries that do not deserve so much attention or when anxiety is exaggerated or appears out of context.
Our life styles have undergone a sea change from how our parents or their parents lead lived. Though we are surrounded by the most modern gadgets, comforts and opportunities to make life easy, but we are stressed and prone to anxiety more than ever before. Stress grips us at a very subtle level and engulfs us before we know it. It could be different kind of stress or anxiety for different people; Interview anxiety, meeting people anxiety, stage anxiety, new job anxiety, or something else. Whatever that we are anxious about we’re in a hurry to overcome it and often become programmed to escape than a positive and realistic solution to get things in control.
When a situation causes anxiety and symptoms begin to emerge and put us in discomfort, instead of coping with the situation per se we start dealing with the symptoms. While some of us choose to do binge eating or going shopping others pop a pill. All these way-outs are no good and won’t help in the long run. On the contrary they will deplete the situation and returning or rising from the pits will be that much more difficult.
The first step to successfully and positively deal with anxiety is to accept that this disorder is creating complications. If we do not accept the situation or don’t believe that it is leading us towards an inferior quality of life we’ll not take steps to change or improve our life. Sooner than we know, all these emotional problems that we have allowed to get bigger in the mind will start reflecting on our body in the form of ailments. Once we accept there is a problem we will be ready to deal with it.
Having a social circle comprising a combination of close friends and positive healthy acquaintances has always proved to be an effective way for worriers to deal with anxiety. Interacting and sharing our experiences with friends or likeminded people offers us a better perspective and helps us remain positive and calm while working on our mind.
It is easier to manage and control anxiety yourself in the early stages. If you allow it to grow, you will need to visit professionals and then it is an endless journey of tests, sittings, medication. It is always better to find a way out before reaching such a stage. Understanding that, “it is we who’ve created this mess; therefore it is we who have to find a way out of it. Nobody can help us”. The day we truly begin to believe it, lots can change.
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