What is Anxiety and How Does it Effect Your Life | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Anxiety Assessment
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Anxiety is a natural emotion triggered by the threat of loss, whether it be loss of life, dreams, relationships, or control. It is designed to motivate us to take action, similar to the fight-or-flight response. However, feeling anxious does not always indicate a real threat. It is important to use the energy of anxiety to evaluate the situation and determine if there is a problem or if it is just a harmless noise. Anxiety can be triggered by various situations, such as hearing a strange noise or experiencing unusual behavior from someone close to us. When anxious, our body releases stress hormones that prepare us for fight-or-flight mode, impairing thinking and causing tunnel vision. Emotional reasoning often accompanies anxiety, where individuals believe that feeling anxious means there must be a real threat. This pattern of thinking becomes encoded in our brains, leading to a cycle of finding things to be anxious about. Anxiety has a significant impact on the body, causing gastrointestinal issues, muscle tension, disrupted sleep patterns, hypervigilance, irritability, and fatigue. It can also lead to depression, guilt, anger, and cognitive pessimism. Anxiety skews our perspective, impairs memory encoding and consolidation, hinders problem-solving and decision-making abilities, affects self-esteem and interpersonal relationships, and makes it difficult to create secure attachments. It is crucial to address anxiety and find effective strategies to manage it in order to improve overall well-being.
Anxiety is a natural emotion triggered by the threat of loss, whether it be loss of life, dreams, re