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Anxiety Can Be Useful – But Also Difficult To Manage We are all familiar with those telltale symptoms of anxiety – the shaking and trembling, the shortness of breath, the headaches and general tightness throughout our bodies that many of us want to suffer less from. However, many of us also fail to truly understand the differences between anxiety and fear, and why anxiety can be so useful but also so difficult to manage. Fear And Anxiety Both Produce A Stress Response Anxiety can often be helpful as an alert to possible danger. If you are walking down a dark street, you may feel uneasy and have butterflies in your stomach about the potential for a stranger to approach and harm you, which may lead you to turn back and head another way. However, unlike fear, anxiety is often a response to an imprecise or unknown threat, rather than a known and definite threat. It is important to realise the subtle differences between fear and anxiety, because both produce the ‘fight-or-flight’ stress response that is inborn in us all. However, while this stress response can be useful in the case of fear where there is a discernible cause and an associated need to either stay and fight or flee to keep us alive, anxiety often has no discernible cause and can prevent you from functioning healthily in day-to-day life. How You Can Better Tackle Anxiety And Fear The next time you feel the tenseness and discomfort associated with fear or anxiety, it may be helpful to ask yourself what you are worried about, and the extent to which this worry is justified. While the fight-or-flight stress response can be invaluable for protecting you from sources of danger, drawing your attention to them so that you can prepare for and react to them, there are many other instances in which it is less useful. These include when you suffer from so much anxiety that your mind feels overwhelmed and you are unable to think clearly, as well as in the case of chronic conditions where the anxiety does not fade as the real threat recedes. If you feel that you could benefit from professional help to identify the causes of your anxiety and how you could better manage it, please contact me, Tamar Posner. My Counselling Services In Queen's Park can enable you to better understand your symptoms and the best way forward for the effective management of your anxiety.
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