Chapter 1 – Understanding Anxiety

It is a normal reaction for your brain to send alarming signals to your body when it detects danger, leaving your body to react accordingly to that danger. To understand this a bit better, let’s define stress and anxiety. While many believe that stress and anxiety are the same, contrary to that belief, however, stress and anxiety have several differences.

Defining Anxiety

Anxiety is often referred to as the uneasy feeling of worry or concern that is developed when you are deeply tense about something. Feeling a bit anxious when facing major life events is normal. However, if those concerning and worrying feelings persist, even when everything is under control, and you end up becoming affected by the smallest of changes in life, then the chances are likely that you have a serious anxiety condition.

Defining Stress

Stress is the natural feeling that arises from the pressures we experience in our day to day life. Stress signals are sent through the brain when our body and mind are pushed to the limit. When the brain detects a sign of stress, it releases adrenaline into the bloodstream. This release of adrenaline causes the body to feel stress, or weary and tired. The body reacts to this increase in adrenaline, leading to the mind's logical solution of resting. However, if your body refuses to stop, and the adrenaline remains in your bloodstream, it can cause depression, as well as increasing your blood pressure, which can cause other negative reactions in the body. Among these negative reactions is anxiety.

Statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health has indicated that more than 40 million American adults, about 18 percent of the adult population have one form of anxiety or another. This makes anxiety disorders the most common of all mental illnesses in the United States.