Did you know that anxiety – a widely used term – is almost universally misunderstood?
Anxiety is a term that encompasses a broad range of symptoms. How these symptoms are experienced is dependent on so many factors such as the nature of the experience that triggers anxiety, individual traits, ability or lack of ability to tolerate intense feelings, ability or lack of ability to self-soothe, adverse life experiences especially those experienced in early childhood, adjustment to novel experiences, and even how you feel about yourself.
Anxiety follows specific neurobiological pathways. How you experience anxiety may be very different from the way another person experiences anxiety.
Symptoms of anxiety range from mild to severe. However, any level of elevated anxiety can be very disruptive to your life.
Anxiety can disrupt your sleep, appetite, and functioning in other areas of your life. At mild levels anxiety may be just an annoyance. At high levels, however, anxiety can be disabling.
You may be familiar with many of the symptoms of anxiety such as jitteriness, restlessness, worry, problems with concentration, panic attacks, and hyperventilation.
Did you know that at severe levels some anxiety symptoms mimic medical conditions. A partial list includes; heart palpitations, chest pains, shortness of breath, tension headaches, neck pain, back pain, jaw pain, teeth grinding, tension headaches, unexplained abdominal pain, bladder dysfunction, some migraines, nausea, transient blindness, transient deafness, fainting, non-substance use blacking out, choking sensations, tension headaches, jaw pain, teeth grinding, hearing impairments, memory loss, dissociation, pseudo seizures, and even hallucinations.
People who experience some somatic symptoms of anxiety often wind up in medical settings and are often referred to medical specialists rather to a psychotherapist.
A major reason is that these people do not appear anxious and they may not know that they are anxious either. Because they appear relaxed their anxiety is often missed. As a result, they may have multiple visits to the doctor but their problems do not improve.