Search:

Considering Chronic Anxiety

Anxiety is a broad description, used often, and as such has become a bit of a watered down term. Anxiety is actually a classified psychological disorder, but it's often used interchangeably with nervousness and fear and upset, among other descriptions of common emotional states. Reducing anxiety to a generic form, however, may diminish the reality that anxiety can be a quite serious condition.

Being anxious is not in itself a bad thing. In fact, all people at some point or other feel anxiety, and the anxiety a person feels can have beneficial effects. Anxiety improves one's mental and physical readiness as a means of coping with some form of problem. In the most dramatic possible scenario, enhanced mental and physical focus from anxiety would enable someone to try and escape physical danger. Anxiety then can be an asset.

Where anxiety becomes problematic is when it becomes chronic, or the anxious response is an overreaction to the circumstances. The chronically anxious condition can be characterized as a person being almost incessantly on edge, expecting the worst and constantly prepared for flight. The damage this sort of chronic state can cause can be quite extreme. A perpetually anxious person is placing incredible physical strain on his or her body, keeping their body constantly vigilant, and ready for a sudden burst. When the body is put under these sorts of physical demands, the body fatigues and wears out. Blood pressure also rises when one is feeling anxious, so a chronic anxious state can lead to development of medical problems related to high blood pressure: stroke, coronary problems, compromised kidney function, and other physical problems besides.

Having an overreactive anxious response can also be damaging. The person who feels anxiety when there's no real threat at hand is overreacting to life's circumstances. People who tend to react in this way are prone to withdrawing as a way of averting their upset, or self-medicating themselves through alcohol and drugs, or both. Withdrawal often, if not always, leads to mood problems such as depression, and even anger and hostility. The use of alcohol and drugs in a coping pattern is, obviously, an open door to addiction.

Chronic anxiety is a serious state, and can lead to further emotional and physical disorder. Any chronic dysfunction is unlikely to just go away on its own: something being chronic in nature indicates fixed patterns have set in. So being chronically anxious is always a call for treatment intervention. The positive news is that the anxious condition typically responds well to treatment, and the person who gets effective treatment for an anxiety problem can improve considerably.

Article Source: http://www.freeforallarticles.com

Zinn Jeremiah is a freelance writer. For help with anxiety, visit anxiety help or social anxiety treatment.