The Essence and Nature of Anxiety

Anxiety is the fear, dread, or anticipation that something undesirable, bad, or awful will or can happen to us. It is the feeling that we are vulnerable and that we are not safe. When we are anxious, we expect and anticipate that something bad is about to happen or could happen even if we are not aware of what it is that we anticipate.Sometimes our anxiety has a specific focus. We fear something specific, such as being trapped in an elevator or falling from a height. At other times we are not able to identify the precipitant or immediate cause of our anxiety. We have a general feeling of being at risk or vulnerable or we might have a sense of fear but not be fully aware of what it is that we fear.The nature of the potential harm we dread is often not physical in nature such as an injury or death that might occur from falling from a height. Instead we might fear emotional harm or loss of sense of self, rejection, or disapproval. The expectation of harm of any kind can provoke anxiety.

The Symptoms of Anxiety

The anticipation of a specific threat and the general feeling of not being safe both lead to common and naturally caused symptoms . The number and severity of symptoms depends on the degree of anxiety that we are experiencing. We might feel troubled or frightened. We might feel tension inwardly, such as in the form of tightness in our chest or in our body in general. It is almost as if we are physically bracing ourselves for something bad to happen. We might feel shaky or we might actually shake, such as when our hands tremble. We might perspire when we are not exerting ourselves physically. We might worry about the thing which we dread or we might tend to worry excessively about things in general. We might have difficulty concentrating on what we are doing because we are distracted by the things we fear, such as when we cannot concentrate on our work. We might feel as though we cannot catch our breath. We might experience pain or discomfort because we tense our muscles in preparation for something bad to happen. Because many of these symptoms are physical in nature, it is understandable that we might think we are ill or even that we might die.

The Nature of Panic

Sometimes the fear or dread that we experience is at such a pitch that we experience many or all of these symptoms at once. When this occurs, our anxiety or fear is called panic. This is perhaps the most distressing form of anxiety. Episodes of panic are usually brief in duration but they can reoccur.It is not difficult to understand why panic is usually brief in duration. When we panic, we fear that something bad is imminent. In a relatively short period of time however, we realize, either on a conscious or subconscious level, that nothing bad has happened or perhaps will happen in the immediate future. Even though we feel panic, there is no apparent reason to panic, and our panic subsides. The belief that nothing bad will happen however is short-lived since we still expect something bad to happen and we experience panic again. This cycle of panic and relief from panic can and often does continue.