What Is Anxiety?

What is Anxiety?

The complex nature of anxiety and a general lack of awareness can create relationship tensions when one partner does not understand the inhibitions, phobias, and stresses of the other. This lack of understanding can sometimes turn to outright dismissal of legitimate anxieties since manageable, small-scale feelings of anxiety are felt by everyone. 

When you or a loved one are suffering from anxiety it is important to understand the nature of the affliction. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is used to identify, challenge, and replace inhibiting thoughts that caused people anxiety.

What does anxiety feel like? Anxiety feels like inner unpleasantness or turmoil accompanied by nervous behaviours such as pacing, somatic complaints, and rumination. In more extreme cases, sufferers of anxiety describe this feeling as a sense of dread, as one can imagine when recognizing one's imminent death. 

A client may begin to feel anxious when sleeping alone after moving out of the family home or be flooded with anxiety before public speaking. For some people, however, pervasive feelings of anxiety can be an overwhelming constant in their lives. Symptoms include panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, unrelenting worry, and incapacitating phobia. Anxiety disorders can have a serious negative effect on the individual's social involvement, professional career, and overall enjoyment of life. Anxiety disorders often occur in conjunction with other mental disorders and are commonly diagnosed alongside depression, bipolar disorder, and certain eating disorders.