Understanding Anxiety

According to the American Psychological Association (2020), “anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure.” It is a reaction to anticipated threats that may be defined. But this is just a short crux of what anxiety actually beholds.  Anxiety isn’t all bad, it has a positive as well as a negative face to it. It helps as a motivator and an alarm system that tells people to act when there’s danger or a deadline to meet or a difficult task coming up (Jaworski, 2020). But it becomes dangerous when it exceeds its function and disrupts physical, mental, and social health (Jaworski, 2020). It becomes difficult to ignore, reduces the quality of life, and is excessive given the situation.Anxiety has a cognitive, physiological, and behavioral component. Physiologically, as put forth by Barlow (2002), anxiety overprepares the body so that it can create a flight-or-fight response to an upcoming perceived threat. Cognitively, anxiety increases the ability to detect a perceived threat by enabling the mind to be more alert to its surroundings (Norton, 2012). The behavioral component comprises the person engaging in preventative behaviors to reduce the upcoming threat or anxiety-producing factor (Norton, 2012). It has been seen that as compared to fear, anxiety has a bigger cognitive role, and related to it are the physiological and behavioral aspects (Norton, 2012). A person cannot be fully free from anxiety, as it is our body’s inbuilt alarm system, but it does aid better if the anxiety could be reduced and stop it from being dysfunctional. 

Most of the anxiety occurs from a perceived threat that is actually not present there in reality. Cognitions have a major influence when it comes to dealing with anxiety (Norton, 2012).  The first step begins with identifying your thought process. Whether your worry or your anxiety, is it negative or positive? Does it help you move forward or hold you back from moving forward? Identifying the thought pattern leads to a better understanding of what is going on internally and how it has consequences on overall behavior. A maladaptive form of thought process in anxiety is labelled as cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are negative thoughts about reality that are misleading and create anxiety in the person (Burns, 2020). Cognitive distortions are coping mechanisms that are developed when faced with adverse situations. They start as a one-time behavior of dealing with anxiety but if they are reinforced often they become a habit and hence, become a coping mechanism (Stanborough, 2019). An example of cognitive distortion is:

Reena: “Hey, how did your math exam go?”

Seema: “hey, it didn’t go well, I think I am going to fail the test, I’m good for nothing.”

There are different types of cognitive distortions; the above-given example is a way of overgeneralization. Overgeneralization occurs when a person concludes a negative event to the person’s self as a whole (Burns, 2020). Another cognitive distortion is polarized thinking. Polarized thinking is an irrational way of thinking that has an “all or nothing” thought process where an individual thinks in black and white shades. Either successful or a failure. Either the best or the worst, i.e. thinking in extremes (Stanborough, 2019). Catastrophizing is another cognitive distortion that is most common. Catastrophizing is expecting an unfavourable outcome of an event and if that does happen, the result will be a disaster (Nall, 2018). Like these, there are many other forms of cognitive distortions that are responsible for increased anxiety.  

A solution to polarized thinking is thinking in shades of grey (Burns, 2020). This means thinking in between the extremes. Not everything that happens, happens in extremes. Things and situations usually have a conclusion in between the extremes. A solution to overgeneralization can be “being specific” (Burns, 2020). Being specific involves focusing on one’s flaws or negatives instead of wondering about the broader, vaguer flaws in the situation (Burns, 2020). Some questions that pertain to being specific are what is it that went wrong with me this time? What was my role in this? Could I have made it better anyhow? Focusing on one’s shortcomings helps the person realize their negatives as well as their strengths. Decatastrophizing happens in one of the ways, i.e. by examining the evidence (Burns, 2020). This is done by giving for and against evidence of the thought by asking questions about the thought (Akkoyunlu & Türkçapar, 2012).

Fear of the uncertain and fearful of a perceived threat is what anxiety is, usually. Embracing the uncertainty, knowing that some situations will happen which are not in our control, accepting that they will happen inevitably makes it slightly easier in reducing the anxiety. Understanding the anxiety and the processes behind it, how it works, what makes it prolonged, how people behave when the anxiety happens, helps in the overall knowledge of self as well as aids in reducing it and having a positive outlook on it.

References

Akkoyunlu, S., & Türkçapar, M. H. (2012). A Technique: Examining the Evidence -. Journal of Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy and Research, 1(3), 184–190. https://www.bibliomed.org/?mno=29278#citedby 

American Psychological Association. (2020). Anxiety. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/anxiety 

Burns, D. D. (2020). Feeling great: The revolutionary new treatment for depression and anxiety. Eau Claire, WI: PESI Publishing & Media.

Barlow, D. (2002). Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Jaworski, M. (2020, September 7). Living with anxiety: How to cope. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://www.psycom.net/living-with-anxiety/ 

Nall, R. (2018, February 7). What is catastrophizing? 6 ways to stop catastrophic thinking. Retrieved January 17, 2022, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320844#related-psychiatric-conditions 

Norton, P. (2012). Group cognitive-behavioral therapy of anxiety a transdiagnostic treatment manual. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Stanborough, R. (2019, December 18). Cognitive distortions: 10 examples of distorted thinking. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions