As with all human beings, when you feel stressed, your body is designed to respond by producing adrenaline. This hormone helps to prepare you for "action" by stimulating some bodily functions while damping down others. This normal, automatic reaction is known as the "fight or flight" response, and is usually triggered when you feel threatened. Once the threat subsides, the adrenaline levels decrease, and you return to your normal routine without continuing to worry about the threat, or the feelings it stirred within you.
However, those who suffer with stress and anxiety problems experience the effects of the "fight or flight" response in a more lasting, damaging way. When their threat dissipates, the feelings caused by their increased adrenaline persist long after the adrenaline levels have receeded.
In the beginning, the reason for the release of adrenaline might or might not have been obvious - it may have been due to some unseen, and perhaps un-noticed event or series of events, which increased your stress levels to a point where your body could simply no longer cope. To those initial stresses is added the second level of worry, resulting from the uncomfortable physical symptoms caused by the adrenaline release. It is when these worries get out of control that things can become distressing. The more you worry about the symptoms, the more you fuel the anxiety by worrying about the symptoms - this "fear of fear" is what worsens and prolonges the problems of anxiety. Escaping this vicious circle is not easy, but it is possible.
COMMON COMPLAINTS AND SYMPTOMS
ASSOCIATED WITH ANXIETY
Remember, if your symptom is not listed here, it does not mean you are "odd", or your case is "peculiar", it is just that there are too many symptoms to list them all, and your's was left off the list for reasons of space.
Also, please note that you cannot catch a symptom you don't already have just by reading or hearing about it
Everyone has anxiety in their life at some time or other. It is a normal part of being human, but for some people it can get out of control to the point where it disrupts their lifestyle. This usually happens when the sufferer becomes afraid of the bodily symptoms he / she is experiencing and then begins to... more |
When panic starts, sensible thinking stops, so you can't depend on being able to think very clearly at the time. Instead of that, you should read through the ten rules set out below very carefully before you begin to practice them so that they are clear in your mind. When you feel panicky, run through them... more |
These links to useful books on Anxiety (above) are provided direct from Amazon.co.uk. You can also find helpful advice in the range of products which we have produced ourselves - click here to see our own range of Self Help Products, available only from the Wallsend Self Help Group.
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