Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes. Anxiety has a cognitive element (worry) and a physiological response (stress), which means that we experience anxiety in both our mind and our body. Anxiety is what happens when you are dealing with a lot of worry and a lot of stress.
Anxiety is a normal part of life, and all of us will feel it
from time to time. Although anxiety doesn’t always feel pleasant, a small amount of it can help us stay safe by alerting us to dangerous situations and help us
achieve important tasks. Anxiety becomes unhealthy when you begin to feel anxiety too often and when it frequently alerts you of danger, but there is not an
actual threat. Unhealthy anxiety can interfere with daily life, cause unhappiness, and sometimes contribute to health issues. Anxiety is also harmful if it is driving you to turn to unhealthy ways to cope.
Where do you feel anxiety?
How those make you feel?
How this it make you behave?
| Managing my stress checklist | Yes | No | Kind of |
| I am taken time to rest | |||
| I am taken time to have fun | |||
| I am taken time to take care of myself | |||
| I am taken time to take care of myself | |||
| I am clear on what I can and can’t control |
| Managing my worry checklist | Yes | No | Kind of |
| I have taken time to be still and calm | |||
| I have taken time to write down all my worries | |||
| I have action planned my worries |
Feeling anxious can often result in us feeling very lonely. This is why it is so important to reach out and connect with someone. A sense of connection is a basic human need. Connection with others helps lower anxiety and help us regulate our emotions, lead to higher self-esteem and empathy, and actually improve our immune systems.
We don’t all need to be social butterflies to experience connection. One significant person is enough. A significant person in our lives is someone that we know is always there for us when we need them. An example of a significant person might include a family member, peer, youth worker and or teacher.
Everybody experiences anxiety differently, but everybody is the same in that we all feel in our bodies. We generally try and out run or block out these symptoms which seem impossible and always feels like they won’t go away!!!! What works is to accept and welcome your anxiety. If you do this, the symptoms could potentially be gone in minutes. If you try to stop them, they may last for hours.
