Is anxiety and fear a major problem in your life?

 

There are two Primary choices in life: either to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility to change them.

 

Is anxiety and fear a major problem in your life?

The answer “yes” assure you, you’re not alone and the “no” that you’re in a good company. But in both the cases anxiety and fear exists. All humans are born with the capacity to experience anxiety and fear. Let’s understand the basic meaning and difference between fear and Anxiety.

 

Fear – The Present-Oriented basic emotion.

 

Anxiety -The Future-Oriented emotion.

 

Fear arises in a flash and often in response to real or perceived threats in the world around you. You need fear to survive because it helps you take protective action when your safety or health is threatened. While experiencing this emotion, you may experience rapid heartbeat, breathlessness, something sensation or increased blood pressure; you may feel hot, sick to your stomach or dizzy; or you may break out in a sweat. You may even feel as though you are about to pass out. Your body and brain are also kicking into overdrive. A number of other bodily changes are activated. All of this activity may leave you with a feeling of heightened energy- the adrenaline rush. The bodily changes are necessary to help you take decisive action. They represent a powerful tendency to fight or flee from signs of threats or danger. Fear also tends to heightened awareness of your surroundings so that you may quickly detect sources of danger.

Anxiety, by contrast is a future-oriented mood state. This means you are anxious about something that has yet to happen. Anything in your future is a potential target for anxiety. While experiencing anxiety you may notice apprehension or a sense of foreboding, worry, and muscle tension. You may feel keyed up and on edge. You may defect that bodily changes associated with anxiety are much less pronounced and dramatic than with fear. Yet anxiety and worry can last much longer than fear, often ebbing and flowing for days, weeks, months or even years. This is possible, in part, because anxiety tends to be fueled more by what your mind does than by real sources of danger or threat.

Experiencing fear and anxiety is healthy and adaptive. Both emotions serve the purpose of keeping you and everyone else out of trouble and alive.

 

For instance fear is necessary when you find yourself faced with real danger or threat. In these circumstances fear will mobilize all of your resources and motivate you to take defensive action- get away or, if necessary, fight to defend yourself. Everything going on in your mind during fear is for one purpose: to help keep you safe period.

 

Some of these actions are so automatic and hardwired that you don’t need to learn them. You just reach without having to think. That’s what we mean by an automatic reaction. It just happens.

 

Anxiety and worry often can be useful and adoptive. In fact, it would be maladaptive not to worry about future events that could truly threaten your health and welfare. We know that a bout of anxiety and worry can help motivate people to take appropriate steps to plan for the future. So you might put together an action plan to prepare yourself for potential threats to your health, employment, safety or the welfare of your family.

 

“Remember fear and Anxious thoughts are part of you, not you. People will know you by what they see you do, not by what you think and feel about what you do. Your commitment is to do your best; it’s not a commitment to succeed”.