Anxiety cont. 

All of us worry about things like health, money, or family problems at one time or another. But people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are extremely worried about these and many other things, even when there is little or no reason to worry about them. They may be very anxious about just getting through the day. They think things will always go badly. At times, worrying keeps people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder from doing everyday tasks.

Symptoms of Anxiety

People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder often experience the following symptoms:

• worry very much about everyday things for at least six months, even if there is little or no reason to worry about them;
• can't control their constant worries;
• know that they worry much more than they should;
• can't relax;
• have a hard time concentrating;
• are easily startled; and
• have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep.

Common body symptoms are:
          o feeling tired for no reason;
          o headaches;
          o muscle tension and aches;
          o having a hard time swallowing;
          o trembling or twitching;
          o being irritable;
          o sweating;
          o nausea;
          o feeling lightheaded;
          o feeling out of breath;
          o having to go to the bathroom a lot;
          o hot flashes.

 Anxiety does not only affect your body, but it also affects your thoughts and behaviors. Therefore, there are three parts to anxiety: physical symptoms (how our body responds), thoughts (what we say to ourselves), and behaviors (what we do or our actions). Learning to recognize these signs of anxiety can help you to be less afraid of it.

• Thoughts e.g., What if I forget what I want to say during the presentation?
• Behaviors e.g. find an excuse to get out of it

· Physical Symptoms e.g., stomach ache, cold sweat, heart racing

Recognizing physical symptoms of anxiety

You can learn to identify the physical signs of anxiety by asking yourself: "What happens when I'm anxious? Where do I feel the anxiety in my body?" For example, when you feel anxious, you may get butterflies in your stomach, sweat a lot, breathe heavily, and feel dizzy or lightheaded.

REMEMBER: If you often experience many uncomfortable physical symptoms, but doctors cannot find anything wrong with you physically, you may have problems with anxiety. You are definitely not "going crazy"! Although these symptoms may be uncomfortable, they are not harmful!

Recognizing anxious thoughts

Anxiety also affects how we think. Anxious thoughts typically involve a fear of something bad happening.

See Realistic Thinking for helpful tips on how to identify and challenge your anxious thoughts.

Recognizing anxious behaviors

Anxiety can make us feel very uncomfortable, and it can make us believe that we are in danger, so it is no wonder that you may feel a strong urge to escape or avoid situations/activities/people that make you anxious. For example, if you are scared of dogs, you would probably avoid going to places where you may encounter a dog (e.g., dog park).

To help you identify situations that you avoid, try to come up with as many answers as possible to the following:

• If you wake up tomorrow morning and all your anxiety had magically disappeared, what would you do?
• How would you act?
• How would someone close to you know you weren't anxious?

My anxiety stops me from ...