Anxiety

The 7 Most Asked Questions

#1 What is Anxiety?

A fear-driven emotional state – with constant worry about future events and what will go wrong.

A learned behaviour which has become a habit and leaves you feeling that you are a prisoner.

Anxiety may be attached to specific events or situations or be general.

It can range from mild to excessive and be extremely disabling.

Anxiety is not an illness or disease.

#2 How does anxiety affect me? What does it feel like?

It will show up as a mix of thoughts, feelings and physical sensations when triggered by certain life events or situations.

Your personal experience is unique, but will include a number of these common anxiety symptoms:

Feeling nervous, restless or tense
A sense of impending danger, panic or doom
An increased heart rate
Rapid breathing (hyperventilation)
Breaking into a sweat
Trembling or legs turning to jelly
Feeling weak or tired
A racing mind making it hard to concentrate or think straight
Trouble getting to sleep or waking early
Tight knots in stomach or pounding sensation in chest
Difficulty controlling worry about future events
The urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety

#3 Where does anxiety come from?

Anxiety is a learned behaviour. You have learned it from certain life events or experiences which took place with strong fear present. These fear charged memories may remain live. We are also pattern-matching machines and whenever we pattern-match something that relates to a live memory we trigger that live memory (or chain of live-memories and have an emotional arousal or activation). This motivates us to take action to deal with the threat. This is the flight / fight response.

Fear itself is simply the body’s natural emergency response mode in action. It is a protective instinct installed in each of us by nature as part of our guidance system. It is intended to keep us safe from harm. Anxiety is a normal heathy emotional response that just about everyone experiences periodically. When we get an overload of fear our brain’s processing capacity goes into overwhelm and we can be locked into an ongoing “alert” or activated state of anxiety. It will have many of the symptoms listed in #2.

It is very common for people to have low levels of anxiety on an on-going basis – leading to a wide range of major health issues in the longer term.

#4 What makes anxiety worse in the morning / or when trying to sleep?

Sleep is critical to maintaining our health and general well-being. It refreshes and revitalises us for the next day. We need to get enough good quality sleep to keep ourselves operating at an optimum level. Dreaming, especially during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, is the key process by which we resolve emotional arousals remaining from the current day and earlier events. When in emotional overwhelm with anxiety we struggle to resolve these emotional arousals (including anxieties) and this impacts our ability to get to sleep and stay asleep.

#5 Will anxiety go away or pass?

Sometimes anxiety will go away naturally and our levels do tend to fluctuate over time. However, significant numbers of people remain in a constant state of anxiety which seriously impacts their enjoyment of life, performance and general well-being.

#6 Can anxiety be “cured” and are there natural non-medical ways to help anxiety?

Fundamentally, anxiety is not a medical problem or a mental illness so “cure” is not the right word to use.

However, taking charge or control of your anxiety is entirely possible and can be achieved easily and quickly for most people. This will eliminate anxiety as a problem and give long-term freedom from excess anxiety. The educational / coaching approach I use is 100% natural. Education, with a small amount of individual coaching support is, from my viewpoint, the best way to resolve the rapidly escalating levels of personal and social anxiety. It compares more than favourably with other available approaches.

Low levels of emotional literacy within our society are a major factor underlying rising levels of anxiety and other common mental health issues.

#7 Who can help with anxiety? And where can I get help?

There are numerous people and places that can help with anxiety.

If you have intense anxiety, it is probably best to see your doctor before seeking other help. Medication works well for some people and not so well for others. It is best seen as a temporary measure. It may relieve the symptoms but is unlikely resolve the issue long term. Long term medication for anxiety is not a good idea.

Many counsellors, coaches and therapists can also help relieve your distress and will use a wide range of techniques. However, just talking about it does not usually resolve the issue long-term either.

My Stop Worrying : Start Living – Be Anxiety & Stress Free programme will clear anxiety quickly for most people by teaching simple skills to keep excess anxiety away.

Essentially you can easily take control of your anxiety rather than have it control you. For more details and or enrolment in a course go to:  https://alanmcintyre.com/be-anxiety-free/

Short and infrequent periods of anxiety are a normal heathy part of life. No-one needs to have anxiety for longer periods.

Break the chains!

Further Note

Fear also drives phobias, panic attacks, OCD and many traumas

Testimonials:

Julia R (Employer of health care staff :

Interpersonal relationships both at work and out of work have become increasingly complex. With the recent Health and Safety at Work 2015 legislation it has become the employer’s responsibility to ensure that work place relationships are positive, safe, fair and equitable.

Alan provides a unique service to staff that enables and empowers them to understand what their issues are and work to resolve them effectively and in timely manner. As of course employers know that staff who are experiencing issues at work often experience them in their personal life. I cannot stress the timeliness of this type of intervention as I have experienced staff having 1-2 sessions and having the tools to be more effective at work and in their personal life!!

Angela: Fear of Flying

Hi Alan

You have saved me!!!

My husband is very pleased too. I think at the start he wasn’t sure this would work, but now we both know for sure it has!!!

I will be forever grateful to you!!

Without you, I wouldn’t be flying.

PS, best money I have every spent, well worth every cent, thank you so much again!

Yes you did help me and I thank you so very much!!!

I even think I’m looking forward to flying the next time

GET IN TOUCH

Take the first step, I’m ready to help.
Please use the form below or simply give me a call or text
64 (0) 272748887 or email: alan@yourlifeliveit.com