Anxiety

As per experts Anxiety is a normal and often healthy emotion , in fact feeling anxious in certain situations can help us avoid danger, triggering our 'fight or flight' response . However if someone regularly feels disproportionate levels of anxiety, it might become a medical disorder. Anxiety and depression are closely related, the stats say 80% of people who suffer from depression also suffer from anxiety. Today anxiety is the most common mental health condition of people in developed countries like US , UK & Australia and 1 out of every 4 person in world is suffering from anxiety.

Nature has blessed us with a most sophisticated body , it is like a super computer . Humans are the only species on the planet that science says can think and plan for the future . So while my dog sleeps peacefully on the Couche without thinking about the next meal , i on the other hand drain my system by over-thinking about the positive and negative options that future can offer . A prolonged thinking like this is what creates anxiety

Let us say you are hiking in an national park and suddenly you see a tiger in front of you & you say OMG & run for life . Luckily you survived but as you are still in the national park , you start getting thoughts what if the tiger comes back or some other wild animal turns up suddenly . These thought creates butterflies in your stomach and you start perceiving the danger even when there is no visible danger . Unfortunately , human brain is not able to differential between real and perceived danger , so even the perceived danger produces same stress hormones in our body which are produced during actual danger (encountering tiger in national park) and when it happens for a long time we end up in all sort of health issues .

While it is easy to buy pills over the counter to fix anxiety , but this method does not work for long as one has to increase the dosage over time because our brain gets used to this medicine and it needs more of it to produce results . As a coach i would suggest to use Cognitive behavior therapy ( CBT) .

CBT is a powerful tool that helps to replace the negative thoughts with the positive and realistic ones . The best part is , as you practice it more and more the results get better and better making you healthy & joyful.

Let me explain with a simple example , suppose John goes for a meeting and while waiting he gets an thought “what if i go blank during the meeting , what if management asks something which i don’t know “. As John gets these ideas the brain senses danger & produces stress hormones to fight the situation . This leads to increase in BP & most of blood is pumped to arms and legs to trigger “fight or flight” response .This worsens the situation as John now cannot think rationally as supply to brain decreases . Luckily john has been trained in CBT and the moment he gets these thoughts he says ,“WAIT a minute , i have all the details i need for the meeting & i am fully prepared , so i will definitely do good” . The moment this happens his mind calms down and he gives his best performance because his mind and body are relaxed ( brain is at its creative when it is calm , not when it is stressed )

Fortunately, we have a number of ways today to deal with anxiety like CBT , Mindful meditation etc .. These methods are safe and very effective but may need some practice in the beginning before they become part of your normal day to day life.

Hope you find this article useful , feel free to contact me in case you need more inputs or help on the subject .

Stay healthy , stay blessed

Coach Sunil