HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE ANXIOUS?

By DR. AK RANA

How to know if you are anxious or not? Anxiety is something that comes to the child from the moment it starts sensing and feeling the things.

Anxiety about exam, result, presentation, any special day etc, is something that we are absolutely clear about, something that will come and pass and with it will go ‘that anxiety’.

Now the case is you are living, working, sleeping, laughing, but you are anxious and you also know it. Either you will know the cause or you are hiding the cause from yourself, because facing it is not an option, either avoiding it or to not let it happen are the only options that are available.

This chronic anxiety is generally a distant one.

ANXIETY

It is considered as body’s reaction to stressful or challenging situations. It can be normal or abnormal depending on-

Intensity, Duration and Dysfunctionality due to symptoms.

Some might remember that under a stressful condition, they become more efficient in work.

Well, here comes the concept of Yerkes-Dodson curve.

It says that with arousal functioning increases until it reaches the maximum, and with even more arousal functioning decreases, that’s where comes the anxiety.

WHAT IS GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER?

Symptoms that are present for more than 6 months –

Restlessness
Free floating anxiety
Inability to relax
Irritability
Sleep disturbances

# Free floating anxiety – Presence of constant anxiety and worry that comes in loops, once you are over with thinking about it; it will start again from the beginning.

A worry that becomes almost impossible to take out from mind. Anxiety and fear sometimes follows a close path.

# Person is not able to relax, to be exact, in a sense that there mind is never relaxing even if they are lying on bed whole day.

Result – If mind is not fit, body cannot be healthy

If mind is exhausted, you are exhausted as well.

Besides it will exhaust you even more, as it will not even let you sleep properly.

# An anxious person find themselves enclosed in a cage, suffocating and in gasp of air. You can’t run anywhere, as you can’t run away from your mind, as it will follow you wherever you go.

MANAGEMENT

Pharmacological management-

SSRIs – Paroxetine, Sertraline
Benzodiazepines
Pregabalin

Psychological management-

JPMR ( Jacobson Progressive Muscle Relaxation technique)
Deep diaphragmatic breathing technique
Cognitive behavior therapy ( CBT )

Breathing exercises for anxiety-

In it comes yogic breathing (Pranayama)

They are very simple to be done, and anyone of any age can do them.

Anulom Vilom – Taking breathe in from one nose and releasing it with other nose by putting the thumb on first one. As you breathe in, take all the positive energy and breathe out all the negativities out of your body.

2.Full Yogic breath – Take full breath and exhale it out slowly.

Brahmari pranayam

Meditation- By taking in and releasing breathe slowly, while keeping your body and mind calm and relaxed.

These can be combined with walking, jogging, stretching, as and as much that you can do.

You must remember that as dust accommodates, likewise anxiety and worry also accommodates over the time, layer by layer, stuffing our inner peace and displacing it with restlessness.

It is very natural to be anxious, but you must treat yourself on time, by finding the cause or causes, one by one writing down its solutions.

(Why writing down? Because we don’t want to burden our brain to remember it.)

As you write solutions, you must mark ‘cross’ in front of each one of them and send them to ‘recycle bin’ (our brain is not as much different than a computer).

Now keep yourselves free and busy in works, as you already solved the problem, keep your mind free of it.

Recycle bin? Does it mean it’s still there?

Yes! At first time you will not be able to eliminate it completely, so it might come back to you.

But, you will be stronger than before and state the same solution.

Now, what solution?

It will be there, this or that.

If it happens then, this or that and,

If that happens then, this or that.

Sometimes you might need to leave the rest to future, while believing in the best you can do today.

I am telling you, as you go on, it will disappear in space and time. Years later you will just smile that once you also thought that, once you were also worried about it.

What is this ‘that’ , it’s the evil one, the cause of your problems and you must fight it courageously , not all at once but slowly over the time and you will see yourself getting free from it.