What is anxiety? Do you think anxiety should be considered an issue in people’s daily lives? Each individual has undergone the feeling of anxiety at some point in life, whether it concerns getting ready for a job interview, getting to meet a partner’s parents, and the imagination of starting a family. While anxiety is highly connected to changes to an individual’s psychological condition, encountered as apprehension and worry probably, and physical signs like increased rate of the heart and adrenaline, it is also understandable that it is likely to impact an individual just temporarily until the cause of the anxiety has passed or when an individual learns to cope with it. Anxiety is, thus, one of the different emotions that serve the desirable role of alerting individuals to things they may have to worry about: possibly dangerous things. Most significantly, the emotions assist an individual in evaluating the possible risks and suitably react to them, possibly by fastening the reflexes or concentrating. Even though people feel that anxiety is just a temporary feeling that fades after a short duration, every person in the world that deals with anxiety must find a way to stop it because it will hurt them mentally, physically, and emotionally daily for the rest of their lives and the result may lead to death.
Giving reference to Pruett (p.2), there is great proof that anxiety responses can result in medically relevant immune-suppression, and other forms of immune system dysfunction. Anxiety can activate an individual’s flight-or-flight stress reaction and produce a huge amount of hormones such as adrenaline and chemicals into the system. In the short-term, this elevates one’s pulses and the rates of breathing such that the brain can receive more oxygen. This prepares one to react appropriately to an extreme situation. One’s immune system might even get a brief boost. With less stress, the body gets back to normal functioning when the stress ends. However, when one is frequently stressed and anxious or has lasting anxiety, the body never receives the signals to get back to normal functioning. This could make the immune system weak, making one more susceptible to viral infections and multiple diseases. Besides, one’s regular vaccines might not work properly when one is anxious, thus, reducing the effectiveness of the drugs. This impacts the general health of the patient.
Panic is an exaggeration of the body’s ordinary reaction to the excitement, stress, or fear. Panic attacks are a duration of extreme fear where signs appear abruptly and peak faster. Panic attacks have been defined as a type of “emotional short-circuiting” (Mental Health Foundation 16), whereby, the limbic brain unexpectedly takes over the functioning of the body, resulting in intense physical feelings that might encompass rhythmical beating, feeling faint, sweating, shaking limbs, the feeling of vomit, chest pains, breathing irritations, and the feeling of losing control. Adrenaline overpowers the cognitive roles, which would usually assist the brain in assessing the actual nature of the risk to the body. The impacts can be so extreme that individuals encountering panic attacks can believe they are dying. It is approximated that almost 1.3% of the United Kingdom population encounter panic attacks as a different disorder (Mental Health Foundation 17).
A phobia is “extreme and illogical fear of a particular scenario or object,” to the extent that it forces the individual encountering it to try so hard to prevent it (Gilbert 16). Phobias can be on dangerous things or incidences that present a threat, but they can also be of inoffensive incidences, objects, and at times animals. Social phobia can encompass the fear of humiliation, being scrutinized, and judged in any way. It can present itself with the fear of doing certain things before other people like addressing a group of people. Giving reference to Mental Health Foundation (17), about 1.8% of adults encounter a phobia of some extent, and women are twice as likely as men to be impacted by this issue.
Agoraphobia is a condition that is mostly described as “fear of open spaces” (Mental Health Foundation 17). However, its main aspect is extreme anxiety activating a panic reaction in instances where escape is viewed as hard or possibly embarrassing, or where assistance might not be easily available. Such crises mostly happen in confined spaces. Individuals with agoraphobia seem to encounter two different forms of anxiety-panic, and the expected anxiety connected to fear of future panic attacks. Agoraphobia can have an extreme restricting impact on the lifestyle of individuals staying with the condition because they seek to prevent instances that make them anxious. For instance, exclusively utilizing places where exit routes are known or staying close to exits. In severe incidences, people are so fearful that they get homebound. The start of agoraphobia is typically between 18 and 35 years and influences between 1.6% and 3.6% of the overall population in its fully developed form (Mental Health Foundation 17). In a less extreme form up to one in nine individuals, i.e. approximately seven million in the United Kingdom, might be troubled by some agoraphobic signs.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a “mental response to a highly stressful incidence” that is not normal to normal encounters like natural disasters, physical violence, and military combat (Mental Health Foundation 17). The signs normally involve repeat nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, and avoiding instances that may activate memories of the events. One research in the United Kingdom identified that out of the total respondents in the armed forces, 2.8% were grouped as having possible PTSD, while household research of United Kingdom adults approximated an occurrence of 2.7% in men and 3.7% in women (McColl et al. 455). While multiple kinds of research assessing the health concerns of asylum seekers and refugees have identified that the levels of PTSD can be as much as ten times higher compared to the age-matched overall population, various stressors have been recognized as highly influencing mental health including those encountered premigration like imprisonment, traumatic grief, and torture, but also post-migration aspects like destitution, detention, discrimination, and delayed decision-making in the asylum procedure (McColl et al. 457).
The obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by “repetitive, insistent, disturbing, and unwanted” characters, obsessions (sensations), concepts, feelings, and imaginations that make an individual feel propelled to do something (urges) to eliminate the sensations (Mental Health Foundation 17). It impacts approximately three percent of the population. The urge to eliminate the sensations offers an impermanent relief and not conducting the obsessive routines can result in great anxiety. An individual’s degree of obsessive-compulsive disorder could affect someone from either an extreme or mild level. Still, if it is extreme and not treated, it can damage an individual’s ability to perform in school, at work, or even make someone live an uncomfortable life at home.
Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by “excess and constant worries about multiple and different things” (Mental Health Foundation 18). GAD is the most often diagnosed anxiety disorder and typically impacts young adults. Women have a higher probability of being impacted compared to men. While people view anxiety as a normal feeling, individuals with GAD find it difficult to manage it, to such a level where it imposes on an individual’s daily existence. It makes an individual feel worried and concerned about multiple issues and situations, instead of one event.
Unlike phobias which concentrate on a particular incident or object, generalized anxiety disorder is spread and imposes one’s life. Even though generalized anxiety disorder is less extreme compared to a panic attack, its interval and the physical and psychological signs like reduced concentrations, irritabilities, and the impacts of interrupted sleep sequences, suggest that sufferers with GAD mostly find it hard to lead the life they would prefer to lead. Generalized anxiety disorder impacts about 4% of the population and has elevated faintly from 1993, but responsible for as much as 35% of the psychological health issues in individuals seen by GPs, which elucidates why an evaluation of individuals seeking assistance via primary healthcare state a higher incidence rate of 7.3% (Macrory 2).
According to Kang et al. (p.3), the true effect of anxiety can be concealed when it is the sign of a different and more common or treatable physical issue, which has a higher possibility of being prioritized in any consequent clinical intervention. Anxiety issues are frequent among cardiovascular clients; for instance, panic attacks are up to ten times more common among individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder compared to the general public. Individuals with GAD have been identified to be highly susceptible to coronary heart illness.
At the same time, anxiety has also been connected to an elevated occurrence of thyroid disease, migraines, arthritis, and gastrointestinal issues. Individuals with anxiety disorders are four times more likely to have hypertension compared to other normal people, and most research has indicated a correlation between reduced functioning of the white blood cells and anxiety, an indication of a weak immune system. There is also proof of an association between anxiety and Alzheimer’s disease. Anxiety is also connected to unhealthy choices of living, including poor diets, excessive consumption of alcohol, and smoking.
Even though people feel that anxiety is just a temporary feeling that fades after a short duration, every person in the world that deals with anxiety must find a way to stop it because it will hurt them mentally, physically, and emotionally daily for the rest of their lives and the result may lead to death. There are multiple impacts of anxiety into the sufferer’s life, including the reduced immune system, panic, phobia, agoraphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, obstructive compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and various impacts in the general health of the sufferer such as increased susceptibility to heart diseases. These impacts affect the sufferer’s daily life in a way that they cannot perform their duties normally at work, school, or even lead a stressful life in general at home. Anxiety is dangerous as it can also result in death if some symptoms persist without being treated. Therefore, anxiety prevention and control is significant in everyone’s life and should not be taken for granted. Everyone should be at the forefront in dealing with this issue either at a personal or community level, thus, achieving success at work, home, and in schools as well, and creating a better society.
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