Anxiety is an emotional state that exists in humans from birth and must be experienced healthily to a certain level. Its main purpose is to ensure the maintenance of life and the development of adaptive behavior. Thanks to this emotion, behaviors such as avoiding new, unknown or dangerous stimuli, coping with them, resisting these stimuli or escaping from them when necessary are observed. Additionally, anxiety is a unique element of being human. The feeling of fear associated with external dangers is also present in animals. However, the feeling of fear towards internal (intrapsychic) stimuli is specific to humans.
The word anxiety is derived from the hindogermanic root "angh", meaning tightness and tightness. Anxiety, which is tried to be explained in our language with words such as boredom, worry, anxiety, is, in short, a disturbing feeling of worry and fear that threatens life or is perceived as a threat.
Normal anxiety helps the person to improve himself, to be more active in order to be successful. It helps him to work properly, to take the necessary precautions by warning him about dangerous issues that may prevent him from sustaining his own existence, and to be more productive; It increases performance and motivates up to a certain level. For example, we study because of the anxiety of failing the class, we obey traffic rules because of the concern of having an accident, and we work hard because of the fear of failure.
Anxiety is created by the biological adaptation mechanism that is activated in case of danger, and due to all these adaptive properties, it is an emotion that is necessary for the survival of human life. However, experiencing this emotion, which is healthy up to a certain extent and occurs in order to cope with negative situations, is severe and prolonged for a long time, and after a certain point, the person's social and private life, normal daily activities, and personal relationships become disruptive. It begins to negatively affect relations between people. The feeling of anxiety experienced here has now exceeded a certain threshold and started to disrupt the person's daily life, that is, to harm him. Since it exceeds the person's ability to cope with this emotion, he may be forced to change his lifestyle, avoidance and escape behavior may be observed, and sometimes his life may even be completely turned upside down. For example, have panic attacks For example, a person cannot go out or continue his job for this reason. Therefore, it is a sick feeling and requires treatment. This condition affects 3-14% of the general population. An anxiety disorder may occur as a result of chemical imbalances within the brain. However, these rates increase in people who have a first-degree relative diagnosed with anxiety disorders. In other words, it is generally thought that familial and genetic factors are effective in the emergence of anxiety disorders. On the other hand, traumatic experiences and natural or human-made disasters (environmental factors) also trigger high anxiety.
Pathological (harmful) anxiety is experienced more intensely and painfully than normal anxiety. Its intensity, duration and intensity are not proportional to the stimulus. The person feels in a kind of "alarm" state and as if "something bad is going to happen."
''I can't be alone at night. I don't know why, but I just can't do it.'' ''The inside of my head is like a cauldron. Thousands of worrying thoughts run through my mind.'' ''Will I ever be able to be my old self again?'' ''I can never feel calm and at peace. I think I even forgot what this was like.'' ''It's like I'm always on the edge of a cliff. Why doesn't anything happen the way I want?'' ''Am I leaving religion?'' ''Will I get infected by touching my hands?'' ''Are my gaze fixated on the sexual area of the person in front of me?'' ''I wonder if I turned off the natural gas or the street door? "Am I having a heart attack?" "I'm dying, I think I'm going crazy" "Everyone is looking at me, my face is turning red" We hear it often. Internal stimuli, not external factors, play a role in the beginning and end of anxiety. Since the person cannot identify an objective reason that may cause this feeling, his fears increase even more. Anxiety also varies between individuals in terms of psychodynamics. First of all, it causes the person to experience past situations and related emotional experiences over and over again throughout his life. On the other hand, a fantastic feature is that stone ir. In other words, they are not only real experiences in the world in which the self currently lives, but also symbolic presentations of an unconscious imaginary conflict. For example, the feeling of anxiety that occurs at an extreme level after a relative goes on a trip may be an expression of a conflict related to the feeling of "separation from a loved one" that was experienced in the unconscious in the previous periods, as well as the real and current feeling experienced about this event. In addition, pathological anxiety is a recurrent emotion and merges into the patterns of the person's character structure.
In the emergence of anxiety, which is an "adaptation response" to stress, and the emotional, physical and cognitive symptoms that accompany it, external stimuli such as hearing, vision and smell, as well as various brain structures, endocrine and autonomic nervous systems, are also affected. They have important roles.
We can divide Anxiety Symptoms into three main categories: cognitive, emotional-behavioral and physiological.
COGNITIVE SYMPTOMS: Normal cognitive functions become exaggerated. (such as hypervigilance) or inhibition of normal functions (such as distractibility). The main ones are;
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Foggy mind,
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Excessive alertness,
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Excessive self-observation,
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Seeing the environment as different and unreal,
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Difficulty in concentration,
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Attention deficit,
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Difficulty in reasoning,
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Difficulty in objective thinking,
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Fear of losing control,
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Fear of not being able to cope,
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Fear of physical harm or Fear of death,
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Fear of losing your mind,
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Fear of being negatively evaluated by others,
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Recurrent fearful thoughts,
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Fearful visual images.
EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL SYMPTOMS: It is observed as hyperactivation or inhibition of normal behaviors and emotions experienced by the person that disturb him/her.
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Fear, uneasiness, tension, anxiety, feeling of dread,
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Nervousness, tension,
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Alarm going into a state,
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Despair, restlessness,
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Escape, avoidance behavior,
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Frozen motionless in place,
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Disorder in the flow of speech,
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Disorder of coordination.
PHYSIOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS: They occur as a result of changes in the functioning of the hormonal, sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous systems, which indicate that the organism has entered a defensive state to protect itself.
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Palpitations, increased heart rate, arrhythmia
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Blood pressure changes,
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Feeling of fainting, actual fainting , facial flushing,
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Respiratory changes (deep breathing, shortness of breath, air hunger, shortness of breath)
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Toughness in the throat, bronchial spasm,
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Muscle tension, pain and tremors,
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Twitching in the face and eyelids,
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Difficulty falling asleep, restless sleep, nightmares, insomnia, waking up the next day feeling unrested,
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Abdominal pain, abdominal discomfort, spasm,
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Loss of appetite, nausea-vomiting, diarrhea,
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Difficulty in swallowing, swallowing air,
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Dry or watery mouth
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Frequent urination,
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Sexual weakness, premature ejaculation, frigidity
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Widespread sweating, local sweating (such as in the palms),
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Itching crises,
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Hot flushes,
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Cold and hot flash attacks.
YES ! With normal stress factors, the flow of life becomes surrounded by increased confusion, fear and anxiety in anxiety disorders and begins to interfere with daily life. While others have “good” and “bad” days, the person with anxiety disorder has “good” and “bad” hours. This fluctuation in his temperament - right up to the moment he breaks it - is, in a sense, an element that feeds his anxiety and anxiety, almost rewards him. Anxiety disorders In addition to pharmacotherapy, the main focus of treatment is to restructure the way the person approaches problems and different life events. The psychotherapy process, which gives the power to approach life from different perspectives, helps to live together with contradictions and acquire thoughts, feelings and behaviors that can make life more enjoyable, can also be the beginning of a new life line for the client. He can reach the maturity of seeing reality as it is, without distorting it, and can have a job that renews itself day by day. One can gain the power to accept people, events and what is happening. His awareness increases that he cannot control everything in life and how meaningful this actually is.
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