A person often worries in everyday life. Some people tolerate this condition easily, while others have a hard time. Is it true that this is normal? Why is it difficult to pull yourself together? Is it possible to use sedatives and what harm can they cause? Psychotherapist Polina Zenkevich answered these questions to the correspondent of the Minsk-News agency.
Photo by psy.systems
Excitement, anxiety, fear are emotional states. A special part of the brain, the limbic system, is responsible for their occurrence. This is an ancient, archaic part of the brain, almost beyond conscious control. Moreover, its role in the development and survival of humanity is colossal.
The mechanism of operation of the limbic system is complex. In a situation of danger, the amygdala stimulates the hypothalamus. It transmits a signal to the adrenal glands, which produce the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. This triggers the fight or flight response. It was she who helped our ancestors survive. We are the descendants of people who knew how to worry and fear. And these feelings are fixed in us by evolution.
Excitement is a mild degree of anxiety in a wary state. The body seems to be waiting and asking: “Will there be danger or not?” In a state of anxiety, the fight-or-flight defense systems are activated in full force. Normally, this helps us survive. If the reaction starts and does not disappear, an anxiety disorder is formed.
Face the fear
The best way to overcome your fears is to face them. For example, you are afraid to ask for a promotion at work, so you constantly put off this conversation. But you don’t know for sure how this conversation will end. So take the first step yourself and conquer your fear.
Each of us periodically experiences excitement and even panic, but this can and should be fought. To make your life easier and learn to control your emotions, take the free online course “Stress Management”. In just 45 minutes you will learn really working techniques that will help you quickly cope with stress in the moment.
Cry more often
Another tip that seems simple only at first glance. The fact is that both panic attacks and severe anxiety often arise as the body’s response to prolonged suppression of feelings and emotions.
If nervousness or tension arises, this is a sure sign that something has accumulated inside us. The tension in the nervous system will only increase. And to prevent an explosion from happening, you need to give free rein to your tears, cry if tears well up from a sad melody or someone’s words, and not restrain yourself.
Initial data
Despite the fact that living conditions literally force a person to come into contact with the social environment (nursery, kindergarten, school, university, work, etc.), for many of us it is communication with people that creates incredible problems. Human activity is determined by the degree of intensity of his interaction with the environment – natural and social. Since ancient times, human temperament has been associated with the innate physiological characteristics of each human body. In the 5th century BC. e. The great Hippocrates identified (supposedly by the presence of the fluid that predominates in the body) four types of human temperament. Translated from Greek it is:
- choleric (bile) - an impulsive, very active and energetic person, sociable by nature, easy to make contact with. At the same time, they love to lead and be first everywhere.
- sanguine (blood) – cheerful, quite sociable, easy to make contact with. This type of temperament is the most sociable and sociable of all. It is easy for a sanguine person to meet and find a common language with new people. He loves to be the center of attention. He always has a lot of friends and acquaintances, but, as a rule, few close friends.
- phlegmatic (mucus) - always even-tempered, calm, moderately sociable, his mood is stable. This type of person is uncompromising; pragmatic, selectively sociable and does not like to chat in vain.
- melancholic (black bile) – sad and vulnerable, indecisive, withdrawn and not sociable. He is characterized by restraint and muted speech and movements, shyness, timidity, and indecisiveness. They avoid other people and are not the first to make contact. They are most interested in their own world than relationships with neighbors and colleagues. Melancholic people have very few friends, but they are very important for unsociable pessimists. Friendship is always strong and lasts for many years.
This is the initial data that, according to coaches and psychologists, can and should be worked with. And even a shy melancholic person can be turned into a successful information businessman, you just need to work on yourself.
Why are we worried?
External causes of the state of excitement: what is happening around us, what kind of world and under what circumstances we live. Internal reasons directly depend on individual characteristics, starting with physiological ones - the size of the amygdala and the number of neurotransmitters in the synapses of neurons - and ending with the developmental characteristics of each of us, for example: in what conditions we grew up and were brought up, how a reliable attachment to parents was formed, etc.
If a person has had a positive experience of trust, he will perceive the world around him as more stable. In the case of unreliable and rejecting parent-child relationships, he is seen as more dangerous and unpredictable than he actually is.
— Do natural phenomena affect the level of anxiety?
— There is a hypothesis that explains the occurrence of anxiety and depressive states by a deficiency of the neurotransmitter serotonin. If we consider the issue from this point of view, we can assume that a decrease in daylight hours will increase anxiety and depressive symptoms,” answers Polina Zenkevich. — As for the weather, I think natural disasters will definitely increase anxiety. This fear appeared in the process of human development. Those of our ancestors who hid from thunderstorms and hurricanes survived.
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— Is it normal to worry?
- Yes, anxiety is our natural adaptive reaction, and it can be called normal. We worry when faced with something new and unknown, because at this moment the brain evaluates the situation, adapts to it and insures itself just in case. This does not affect our health in any way,” the psychotherapist notes.
But prolonged, systematic worry will definitely not lead to anything good. The release of stress hormones has a serious impact on our body. Heart rate and breathing increase, blood sugar levels rise, and blood circulation changes. In general, such an “action” usually does no harm. But if it occurs frequently, it can lead to disruption of the heart.
— When I explain these mechanisms to people, I use the operation of an engine in a car as a metaphor. If we drive at high speeds, it helps to speed up somewhere and be on time somewhere, but it leads to rapid wear of the engine. Moderation and gradualism are important everywhere,” the interlocutor emphasizes.
— How does anxiety affect our health?
— In medicine there is the concept of “target organ”. This is the organ that can fail first,” continues Polina Rostislavovna. — The ICD (International Classification of Diseases) has separate sections for describing such diseases. There is a section “Somatoform disorders”. They cause physical symptoms that relate to different systems. Chest and abdominal pain, shortness of breath without exertion, impaired frequency of urination, pain in the limbs and joints, numbness, tingling. They can appear without changes in the organs and tissues of the body, that is, according to the results of a medical examination, the person is actually healthy. The stress he experiences is involved in the occurrence of many diseases. These include bronchial asthma, dermatitis, eczema, stomach ulcers, ulcerative colitis, and urticaria.
You may know someone who has a knot in their stomach, or you may even feel it yourself. This is a good example of how anxiety affects our health. As a result of the activation of “fight or flight,” the gastrointestinal tract finds itself in a state of temporary lack of blood supply, which means it receives fewer nutrients and gas exchange processes are worse. First, symptoms of gastrointestinal dysfunction appear (frequent stools, constipation), and over time, inflammation is likely to appear...
— How to cope with anxiety?
— My favorite way is breathing relaxation. You can use its simplest version: take a deep breath through the nose (for about 5 counts) and exhale deeply through the mouth (for 6–7 counts). We repeat this 10 times. We observe our breathing. We imagine how air enters the lungs through the nose and comes out again. It is important to focus on the process itself so that the exhalation is longer than the inhalation. It is necessary! - explains the doctor.
Another method, familiar to many from films where the hero panics, is to breathe into a paper bag. It's banal, but it works flawlessly. The air in the bag from breathing is filled with carbon dioxide, its inhalation leads to hypercapnia - an increase in the level of carbon dioxide in the blood.
Photo is for illustrative purposes only, pixabay.com
Causes of unreasonable anxiety and worry
The onset of anxiety disorder is influenced by heredity. It has been discovered that certain brain structures and features of biological processes play an important role in the occurrence of fear and anxiety. Personality characteristics, physical health problems, lifestyle and various types of addictions also matter. Sometimes causeless anxiety and worry have no reason. Negative feelings usually have a trigger—an event or thought that triggers an anxious response. However, most people are unaware of their triggers and believe their emotions are unfounded. In this case, only a specialist will help you understand why anxiety occurs for no reason.
There are a number of diseases whose symptoms include constant anxiety. With unreasonable fear and anxiety, the reasons may be as follows:
- Generalized anxiety disorder: persistent nervousness and worry about small things that are usually visible to others and last for 6 months or more. Begins in adolescence and intensifies with age.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder: obsessive thoughts and fears that are accompanied by compulsive actions that do not bring relief. There is obsessive-compulsive neurosis - a person is indomitably haunted by memories that reproduce a traumatic situation.
- Phobias: irrational fear of any, even mundane, things. Accompanied by uncontrollable panic and physical manifestations.
- A panic attack is a painful and sudden attack of panic, which is accompanied by a fear of death and vivid somatic symptoms. Regular occurrence of panic attacks means the development of panic disorder.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder: occurs after a severe traumatic situation and is accompanied by high levels of anxiety, avoidance and flashbacks.
These are the most common examples, but pathological anxiety can be a symptom of other disorders or a consequence of unsuccessful management of stress. If you want to understand why you feel anxious for no reason, you should consult a doctor. Without finding out the main factor and working on it, it is impossible to restore health and mental balance.
In public
Communication with people is an important area of our lives, and it would be great if rhetoric was the subject of study at school. Thanks to the ability to speak beautifully, we make friends, family, and achieve success at work. Most conflicts stem from the inability to negotiate.
People suffer from loneliness only because they are embarrassed to talk to a handsome stranger or a beautiful stranger.
Many people remember their first speech at a meeting, meeting, or in front of a large audience. Fear of looking inappropriately in front of people and lack of self-confidence reduce a person’s ability to think, difficulty concentrating, some kind of emptiness in the head, the thread of the conversation is lost, the voice breaks treacherously, hands tremble. It is very difficult to overcome this state, direct thoughts in the right direction and start talking.
It often happens that a person communicates well among his friends, but in public he withdraws into himself and cannot find the right words.
Ask yourself an important question
Excitement and nervousness are always accompanied by the fact that a person has an endless conversation with himself and begins to worry about everything.
A method proposed by psychologist Karen Whitehead will help stop this internal dialogue. On a small sheet of paper, write just two (maximum three) words about what is bothering you. You can even arrange them in the form of a list with dots or circles. Look at them and ask yourself:
"It is a fact? Is this true or is it what I think?”
Very often it turns out that we are 100% sure of something that we didn’t even bother to check.
Do what you're afraid of
I will never be able to forget how I felt during the interview when entering a university. The tables at which the commission members sat were arranged in the letter P. And in front of them, in the most prominent place, stood a lonely chair, on which I was asked to sit. I sit down and feel myself starting to blush. My knees involuntarily bounce, no matter how hard I try to press them with shaking hands. There was a terrible confusion in my head. I was gripped not just by fear, but literally by horror. This silent scene took a little longer. When they asked me the first question in the field of chemistry, the answer to which I knew perfectly well, the muscles of my face were so tense that they did not allow my mouth to open for some time, and my mouth was so dry that my tongue could not turn. Only knowing the answers and an irresistible desire to study at this institute made me overcome the tension and speak. The more I focused on the questions, rather than on internal emotions, the freer I felt and the more confident I was in answering them.
Many people, when worried, even become speechless. There was a case in my life when I decided to help my classmate correct her bad grade in geography. Homework was to study the names of all the countries of the world and their capitals. At home we learned this topic together, and the girl repeated everything to me five times independently without prompting. On the way to school, she again told everything without a single mistake. And when the teacher called her to the board and asked her to tell this task, the girl could not say a single word. She explained her condition to me as stage fright, which paralyzed her ability to think.
Do what you are afraid of, then the fear will disappear (go to the dentist, jump into the water to learn to swim, get on a bike to learn to ride, etc.). With practice you can overcome your fear. At sales trainings, people are often given the task of asking 10 strangers for money or selling 10 people some trinket. This technique is based precisely on the principle - practice and you will succeed. After such 10, 20 people, you will already notice that the trembling in your voice has disappeared, after 10 sales you will feel the fear receding.
Physical signs
You should try to eliminate symptoms of anxiety. Otherwise, it can lead to constant anxiety and panic attacks. You can suppress it in several ways:
- at a consultation with a psychologist;
- sessions with a psychotherapist;
- medicines;
- auto-training;
- special exercises.
Before you begin to fight anxiety, it is necessary to identify its signs, which are mainly external in nature. They relate to manifestations of human physiology and are often noticeable not only to him, but also to those around him.
This is necessary to prevent the development of mental disorders. These signs include:
- increased breathing, which is accompanied by a strong heartbeat and redness of the face due to the abundant blood flow;
- the opposite situation is pallor of the skin, which manifests itself with low blood pressure or dizziness;
- colic in the abdomen;
- dry mouth, which is obvious only to the person himself until he begins to lick his lips; he often has a lump in his throat that does not allow him to drink or eat at this time;
- fast or slow speech depending on the characteristics of the nervous system;
- changed voice timbre;
- sudden body movements when a person stands/sits or moves;
- trembling of the whole body or its individual parts;
- excess sweat production, which is noticeable by perspiration on the forehead;
- shifting gaze - a person avoids looking into the eyes of the interlocutor;
- excessive gesticulation;
- nail biting;
- concentration on objects in hand.
Signs can appear either individually or in groups at once, but one should not rush to conclusions. One should distinguish from them the symptoms of mental disorders, which can only be relieved by high-quality treatment.
Why do we get nervous when communicating?
From a physiological point of view, this is due to the properties of our nervous system. The tendency to worry is also associated with human psychology (uncertainty, tightness, fear of failure, shyness).
Most often this happens in the following situations:
- When we don’t feel sympathy or affection for the person with whom we have to communicate. This causes irritation and hostility.
- When the interlocutor is completely unfamiliar. There is a fear of being misunderstood and rejected.
- When a person’s status (boss, minister, director, dean) influences. Tension, uncertainty, and embarrassment arise.
- When a person overestimates the significance of events (audit, tax audit, exam, job interview, etc.).
Success in resolving important issues depends mainly on the careful preparation of evidence (reasoned presentation not only in words, but also in writing, mandatory confirmation with drawings, diagrams, decisions of higher authorities, etc.).
Many people, when talking with their boss , are so nervous that they cannot concentrate on the question with which they came to him, they speak indistinctly, with a broken voice, and even stutter. This makes an unpleasant impression. Therefore, people with such increased excitability must definitely prepare for visiting persons with a certain title; it is advisable to even outline the main aspects of the upcoming conversation on paper.
Stress and the adrenal glands: how does it work?
Up to 70% of people who report stress actually suffer from some degree of adrenal imbalance (the organs that produce the hormones that control your response to stress). Under conditions of chronic stress, our body goes through three stages, which are characterized by varying degrees of adrenal imbalance and ultimately adrenal depletion.
In the first stage , we accumulate additional energy to cope with stressors. After the first surge of adrenaline, the adrenal glands begin to secrete cortisol, which initially - and in small quantities - is a source of strength and endurance for us. In the right amount, cortisol helps metabolize food, fight allergies, and reduce inflammation.
But if the state of excessive arousal continues, the adrenal glands begin to secrete too much adrenaline and cortisol, replacing them with our feel-good neurotransmitters, namely serotonin (the source of self-confidence and optimism) and dopamine (the source of pleasure). When cortisol chronically circulates in the body, it begins to stimulate inflammatory responses and can cause the very diseases it was originally intended to protect against. Accordingly, signs of disease or infection appear.
We no longer experience the “euphoria” associated with the adrenaline rush; instead, a bad mood or even depression appears . Too much or too little cortisol can lead to decreased concentration and a feeling of being overwhelmed. We resort to external stimulants - caffeine, salty or sweet foods. We exhaust ourselves even more by playing sports, or, conversely, we stop all physical activity. We begin to feel chronic fatigue and irritation.
In the final stages of adrenal imbalance, these organs are so damaged that they are no longer able to produce enough stress hormones. Every minor problem now seems like a global catastrophe. From now on, for example, when your son spills milk or your manager gives you a disapproving look, it is truly the end of the world for you.
