Coexistence Corner

What Causes Anxiety?

By Nate Feldman

I was reading today about an author who found ways to reduce anxiety in his life by taking chances and letting it gradually vanish through a process he referred to as "extinction."  What he meant by this was the more you do something, the less anxious you will feel about it eventually.  While reading this, I began to think of why people get anxious in the first place and how this can be harmful to one's well-being.  Here are some of my thoughts about that.

Anxiety is that jittery feeling inside us that we constantly feel, especially when we are in difficult situations, but also in plenty of ordinary life situations. Some might say it is a survival mechanism because it helps us do things to protect ourselves. Without it, we wouldn’t feel danger. But, some people feel it about everything, and that can be potentially harmful. So, why do so many people have out of control anxiety? It’s because they overthink.

Some people see a problem everywhere. They assume that the world is just a bad place with tons of bad things. Their brains have all kinds of images of horrible things happening. For example, if they smell smoke, they think there is a fire. If they hear a strange sound, they think a bad thing is going to happen to them. They don’t just go with the flow of life, so they are filled with endless anxiety.

The effects of this of course can be quite detrimental to people. People can have tons of chronic health problems because of being overly anxious. They can also have social difficulties because they are always nervous and upset, which will make people feel the same way when they are around them. Even worse than both of these is that life will pass them by, and they won’t take the time to enjoy some of the amazing experiences that come with it because they will be worrying about everything all the time.

So, in the end, while we need to have a little anxiety to protect ourselves from bad situations, it is ideal if we can learn to rid ourselves as much as possible of anxiety and enjoy the many great things that life has to offer.