WORSE THAN FEAR - ANXIETY

in #life8 years ago

There is a big difference between Anxiety and Fear that most people are not aware of.

It is really important to know the difference between Anxiety and Fear in order to understand them and find ways to overcome them, especially Anxiety.

The more you know your “enemy” the better you are able to conquer it.

Anxiety vs Fear

Anxiety differs from Fear in four major aspects:

  • Long Lasting Anxiety is worry, nervousness, concern, tension, and angst about something that will linger for weeks, months or even longer, years. Anxiety never leaves you, it is always present with you. Anxiety is an animal of prey that stalks you patiently, waiting for the right moment to strike... you notice its presence around you, in you.
  • Vague Anxiety creates a smoke screen in your life that doesn’t let you define it, it is not something specific, it is about everything. When you are asked about what is wrong you might answer “Everything”. The Anxiety maybe about money, relations, health, spiritual issues, children, your job or lack of it. Because Anxiety is not specific you don’t know where to start to eliminate it. It is general, everywhere.
  • Paralyzing Anxiety blocks you from doing something to get relief from it. As soon as a solution or possibility is presented to you, you automatically anticipate the possible negative results that might happen or you might doubt about yourself that you can do something about it. As a consequence of this train of thought fueled by Anxiety you get too scared to even try anything. A common reaction to deal with this is to deflect and do something that is irrelevant, like playing computer games, eating or watching tv. Anxiety gives you this feeling of being trapped with no possible escape, whatever you do nothing will work.
  • No Acceptance Anxiety creates avoidance of the situation you are in. Diverts you from accepting and experience the physical feelings and mental justifications. It is common to lead to impatience and procrastination.

The Positive Side Of Fear

Fear on the contrary happens in the present and it is temporary (i.e.. the car is heading in your direction and might hit you), it is specific (the car), you accept the feeling of fear, and ultimately fear gives you the energy to react and deal with the situation you are in (either fight or runaway). We can see that Fear has a positive side. It can save your life from a danger situation. Anxiety, on the contrary, takes your mental clarity and the physical motivation to take action which in the end would eliminate your fears.

Now it is clear that we are talking about two very different realities.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed learning more about fear and anxiety.

Until next time, this is Awake... Development

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Great post! I totally agree with all of the points you made about anxiety, based on personal experience.

Thanks @colourmeslim Anxiety is tough to deal and some people don't even know they have it, but there are practical and simple techniques to regain life back and smile again :)

I'm convinced that basically all of our emotional pain resulting from anxiety is caused by our own overthinking. It can be hard enough for most people with over- sensitized nerves to not get caught up worrying about the future, but it's even more difficult catching yourself in the moment before you get caught up in that cycle. There's a guy I follow on youtube, who does Vlogs and podcasts on practicing awareness and acceptance when it comes to anxiety and panic attacks, and he talks a lot about the fight or flight response and how our brains, as weird as it may sound, are not really all that smart. Your brain does not know the difference between an actual physical threat, and just a pop-up thought (like not making it to work on time and getting yelled at), so when you begin to get nervous as a result of these thoughts, it automatically releases more of those hormones that make you feel anxious, in an attempt to save you from whatever threat is(n't) there. I love how you gave some real-life examples on this subject too! Great post! This is such a fascinating topic! I'd love for you to check out some posts I made on this topic as well!

https://steemit.com/health/@markymark93/dealing-with-anxiety-depression-don-t-give-your-negative-thoughts-power
https://steemit.com/health/@markymark93/the-ultimate-treatment-for-social-anxiety-face-your-fears