What is Anxiety?

by Prof Dr. Bilal Semih Bozdemir

What is Anxiety?

Just as it is difficult to describe other thrills or excitements, describing anxiety is a difficult task. Anxiety can be contained in one or several of these excitement situations: sadness, distress, and fear, the feeling of failure, helplessness, uncertainty and trial. Some psychologists say there are three important differences between fear and anxiety: (1) Source. Exactly like in the example of “I’m afraid of bees”, we know the reason, the source of our fear but the source of anxiety is always unknown. (2) Violence: A fear is more violent than anxiety (3) Duration/Length: Fear is less long but the anxiety lasts much longer.

Psychologists characterised and defined the physiological phenomena occurring and the ones that may be observed during a period of anxiety by analyzing the similarities between fear and anxiety. Their claim is supported by experimental observations. That’s why psychologists use physiological symptoms or changes such as heartbeat, blood pressure, the blood chemical composition, Galvanic Skin Response and breathing exhalation rate in the evaluation of anxiety. Causes of anxiety The kind of environment which could create a certain type of anxiety may differ from one culture to another. But it is possible to make some generalizations for all the societies.

These generalizations specify the commonalities between the environments causing the feeling of anxiety. (1) The withdrawal of support: Fatih’s mother, father, brother, table at home, working desk, neighbours, friends or his domestic dog and cat are all a part of his life, but suddenly he finds himself in a foreign city, a foreign house, and he’s therefore away from his family, friend, relatives and acquaintances. There isn’t anymore none of the support he previously had or he got used to until now. People get anxious when their habitual closest environment disappear this way. (2)Excepting a negative result: We are usually anxious when we’re excepting negative situations such as the following to arise: when we sit for an exam with an insufficient preparation or waiting for a traffic hearing at the court to sentence us with a traffic ticket. (3) Internal contradictions: We fee stress which is a kind of anxiety when we face unexpected results with something we believed in or considered important. Cognitive paradox is an important source of motive and thrill. Until a way to get rid of the contradiction is found we feel somehow anxious.

For example, if someone who believe that humanity is living in a world that will surely someday be destroyed by the development of nuclear weapons, is obliged to work in a lab that produce these kind of weapons he will constantly live in a tense and anxious state of mind. (4) Uncertainty: Being unable to know what is going to happen in the future is one of the obvious main causes of anxiety in people. Being aware of the negative events that will happen in a near future is preferred to being completely ignorant of the upcoming events. The symptoms of Fear and Tension A list specifying the possible symptoms that may be observed in anxious and nervous people is given below. If you or a neighbour of yours have these symptoms you can try to use one of the conscious resolution techniques. However what you’ve got to realise is that those symptoms may also be signs of physical diseases that’s why when they are observed for a long period of time in someone and that it influences their daily life activities it’s better to get examined by a doctor. * Shortness of breath * Stomach pain * Sweating * Diarrhea or constipation * Irregularity in breathing * Has not overreact * Intermittent breathing * Chills * Tension * Coldness of the fingers and toes * Heart palpitations * Constant fatigue * Suddenly angry * Continuous headache * Backache * Tension in neck muscles Ways to handle fear and tension We can categorize the techniques of coping from anxiety and tension in two main groups: the technique that may be applied when conscious and the ones that may be used unconsciously.

The technique unconsciously are called defense mechanisms. Someone using the defense mechanisms isn’t even aware of the fact he’s using a technique to reduce anxiety and tension. The techniques we consciously use include behaviours we have achieved as a result of learning. The Self-hypnosis technique- one the conscious ways of coping Holland and Tarlow (1980) proved anxiety and tension could be eliminated when a human being self-hypnotises himself and therefore gets rid of his undesired thoughts and feelings and enters a state of thinking and perception. These are the steps they proposed to achieve the technique: (1) Sit on a comfortable chair in a position that allows you to keep your back steep or perpendicular to it. Put the chair 1.5 or 3 meters away from an empty wall. Put a scotch or mark with pin a point located 30 cm higher than your eyes’ alignment on the wall. (2) Look straight forward to the point on the wall and without hurrying up start taking a calm breath. In each breathe try to count slowly backwards from 10 to 0. (3) When you say a number continue watching the point on the wall and meanwhile imagine that your hands and arms are becoming heavier and heavier and you can’t move them anymore. (4) Now start thinking about the fact it’s getting harder to keep your eyes open because your eyelids are getting heavier. You’re eyelids are closing as if there was a heavy load attached to them, it’s becoming impossible to keep your eyes open. Now close your eyes (perhaps at that very moment your eyelids close up on their own). (5) Exactly like in the 2nd step start counting again from 10 to 0 and at the pronunciation of each number take a calm and reposing breath.

Only think about your breathe and nothing else. Think about your breathe as if it was a smoke coming out of a boiling kettle and imagine you’re actually seeing the smoke entering your noses, going to your lungs and then getting out of your noses. (6) Count as you’re breathing and when you reach as certain number feel like you plunge yourself in a warm bathtub. Imagine how the warm water is refreshing your skin. Just completely slack and try to relax, say to yourself “relax, let your whole get loose”. Keep your body in a condition of complete immersion and relaxation, try to keep that feeling last as long as possible. Let thoughts start coming to your mind, then start opening slowly your eyes from the moment you start making plans about your daily problems and then after staying in that state of opened eyes for a while get up and start your daily activities. The technique of grade relaxation This technique was inspirited by a 24 steps method from Holland and Tarlow (1980). For more information please refer to the Baltaş’ published works (Baltaş and Baltaş, 1986, Ways of coping from fear).

Choose a comfortable area for yourself. Lie on a carpet or a cushion in a silent room or if possible a room inside of which nobody wouldn’t disturb you for at least 30 minutes. (1) Squeeze your right fist, keep it as if you were grasping something and then stretch it. Pay attention the feeling you had when your hand’s muscles were tight and then you released them. (2) Slowly squeeze your fist as you did before and after a while slowly stretch it. Once again keep your mind focus on your muscles and observe how different you feel at the very moment you’re tend and then you release your hands. (3) Now squeeze your left fist, keep it squeezed for a moment and then stretch it. (4) Slowly squeeze your left fist and release it after staying like that for a while. (5) Stretch your biceps from both of your arms to your fingers as if you were carrying a heavy load, increase gradually that tension and then completely release yourself. (6) Slowly repeat the 5th step. (7) Put your arms down, put the back of your hands on your legs and push arms backwards with a constantly increasing strength. Release everything and then pay attention to the muscles located in the back of your arms. (8) Now put your arms by your body sides and imagine that the whole tension is flowing from your arms to outside. (9) By making a pressure on your facial muscles make your forehead tensed (just frown). (10) Keep the muscles in your forehead squeezed and release them after a while. (11) Close intensively your eyelids and keep them squeezed for a moment. After a moment stretch your eyelids without opening your eyes. Pay attention to the difference between feelings you had when your eyelids and the muscles near your eyes were so tense. (12) Grit your teeth in order to make your chin and temporal region very tight. After a moment ease off/slacken your chin and keep your mouth half opened. (13) To feel your neck muscles throw your head backwards and tighten the muscles in the back of your neck very well, while your muscles are still tense, turn your head first to your right side and to your left and then lean it to your front side. After keeping muscles tight, slacken them. (14) Raise your shoulders and tighten the muscles between your shoulders and your neck, after keeping them like that for a while slacken yourself and relax. (15) Release your shoulders and then your arms, your neck’s nape, your neck and your chin, your forehead and eyelids and relax. Imagine that your fatigue is getting out of your body, from the shoulders to the bottom of your arms and flows from your fingers’ extremity to the outside of your body. You should notice that your tension is decreasing gradually. (16) Take deep breathes and pay attention to the tension that occurs in your chest. Hold your breath and notice the tension inside your chest. Now relax and breathe out. (17) Now start breathing slowly and normally. Imagine your body relaxing each time you breathe in and out. Now continue breathing and feel the progressive disappearance of the sensation of tiredness in the other parts of your body. (18) Now tighten your belly muscles and keep them tense for a while. Slacken tem and feel the great difference between when they were contracted and when you stretch them. (19) Contract the two muscles by your spine’s sides. Feel the sensation of tension when this part contracted as the other body parts are free. Release those muscles after a while and feel the difference. (20) Continue breathing in and out and slacken each and every contracted muscle in the upper part of your body. Try to relax until no muscle of your whole body isn’t contracted anymore. (21) Now contract well muscles in your hips and your legs and release them after a while. Pay attention the great difference between the state of tension/contraction and relaxation of those muscles. (22) Without raising your ankle, increase the tension in the calf of your leg by raising your toes. Play with your toes and increase the tension inside you’re the muscles and pay attention to the feeling. Put back your ankle to its normal position, relax and then notice the difference. (23) Without raising your ankles put your toes back and tighten up the muscles in front of the calf of legs’ region. Release the tension and just feel the difference. (24) Now in your whole body relax all your muscles starting from the head to the toes. Now lie down with your head, forehead, eyelids, chin, neck and nape, shoulders, arms, chest, belly, hip, legs, calf of the leg and foot’s muscles completely relax. Continue taking regular breathes. Feel the muscle tension in your legs and arms decrease. Lie down for 5 to 10 minutes in that relax position. The most important thing here is to remember the difference between when your muscles are contracted and when you slacken them. After doing this exercise for a couple of times, your muscles start responding at once to all your mentally given orders.

So it becomes possible for you to handle or to prevent situations such as when someday in the future your muscles are tense and your respiration is irregular. If the technique of contraction and relaxation explained above is applied every day for 15-20 minutes after coming back from work, fear and tension are reduced dramatically. With time your body will get used to that technique and it’ll be possible for you to rest deeper. For those who want to get rid of their daily fear and tension it is advised they make use of this technique or similar ones. The Source Discovery Technique as one of the conscious ways of coping Finding and understanding the causing factors of a fear may help to make the violence of that fear decrease. Someone’s personal lacks lie or are located in an area inside of which the events causing their fears or near the conception of someone’s ego/personality. The intrinsic analysis you’re about to do without hesitation or giving up may help us to determine the events or situations that are giving birth to your fear. The following method is given in that purpose, you may apply it exactly as it is described or after making some slight personal changes. (1) Be aware of your fear and accept the fact you’re afraid.

This is one of the most important steps. If you’re unware of your fear you can’t be handle this by yourself. When you’re afraid or when you worry about something your body and your behaviours change more or less. For instance, fear can lead to changes like a superficial respiration, a more frequent heartbeat, the inability to get focus or concentrate, symptoms such as irritability or getting easily angry for simple things. If you correctly know your own body and you’re aware of these behaviours you can immediately notice those changes. If you don’t accept the fact that you’re afraid you could never have the chance to use the technique mentioned in the next step. (2) Take a closer look or analyse your condition from an outside point of view.

For example, you’re at home and noticed that you become afraid when you’re in your house environment and therefore you decided to check what may be the causes of this fear. In order to achieve your decision stay away from your house’s environment for a while and analyse your house situation. You may spent a couple of time far or away in different ways. You can go out for a walk you may make a two to three hours long trip in a ferry (boat) or on a bus or you may spend some time in the neighbouring park and give some food to the birds. The most important thing is not what you spent your time doing but the fact you get away for a couple of time from the house neighbouring. (3) Imagine yourself being in the most comfortable place for you. (4) Understand that your fear lies under your own personality. (5) Determine some short and long term solutions to deal with your fear. (6) Immediately start applying the short term solutions and prepare yourself to apply the steps for the long term solution.

The most important thing for you to remember about short term solutions is: The first step is always the most difficult one. After the first step, the next ones slowly follow. (7) Don’t forget the fact the time and energy you sent because of your fear have never been advantageous. You will never be able to cope from the reasons why you’re basically afraid if you continue being worried. On the contrary you will make the solution’s arrival more difficult. The time you spent being afraid and the neurophysiological conditions resulting from fear influences negatively your focus/concentration and thinking abilities. (8) Try not to exaggerate your fear. Most of us react got used to always try to show negative feelings or situations worse than they actually are. Such a habit creates a vicious circle. Exaggerating fear leads to more worries, more fear leads to even more exaggeration, and exaggeration leads again to fear as well. Try not to enter such a vicious circle.