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It seemseveryoneis talking aboutanxietythese days, and that’s not a bad thing.
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Shining a light on mental health helps reduce the stigma that keeps many people from seeking support.
This is actually a good thing when there is a real threat of danger present.
But if you have anxiety, that stress response can kick in when it shouldn’t.
Instead of being helpful, this misfiring of your fight or flight reaction can hinder you.
Thats something you’ve got the option to get help with.
But its not as cut-and-dry as saying that anxiety is simply when you feel nervous all the time.
This mental health condition comes in many forms.
Perthe ADAA, GAD affects 6.8 million U.S. adults each year.
Perthe ADAA, it affects 6 million American adults each year.
These are just some of the various anxiety and anxiety-adjacent disorders out there.
This functional impairment, as Reynolds calls it, can show up in different ways in different people.
Is anxiety making you avoid doing things with loved ones because youre too nervous to go outside?
Do you skip school or work out of fear of what people may think of you?
Can you not get enough sleep because youre up all night worrying about the next day?
Keep tabs on whether youre blowing up at people, too.
Anger and irritability can sometimes be a sign of anxiety.
We often forget that fight or flight includes ‘fight,’ Reynolds says.
So, too, couldphysical issues.
We think of ourselves as these disembodied heads floating around, Reynolds says.
We forget that there is a big feedback loop between the nervous system and the body.
Constant fatigue can also kick in if your anxiety is in overdrive.
The physical reaction to anxiety, by nature, is supposed to be short-term.
The body is supposed to come back down to baseline, Duff says.
But a prolonged period of anxiety depletes your resources and exhausts you.
If your anxiety is bothering you and you are suffering, you deserve to get help, Duff says.
Knowingwhat to expect at your first therapy sessionmay make the experience less scary.
Although every professional is different, youre likely to get a lot of questions at the first visit.
Theyll also want to figure out which kind of therapy best matches your needs.
They may be able to refer you to local organizations that offer more affordable treatment.
Resources likeGoodTherapyalso allow you to limit search results to therapists who use sliding scales.
And dont stress about meeting some arbitrary threshold of anxiety for your appointment to be worth the effort.
Somebody with anxiety [may] think there is a risk to seeing someone.
That’s not true.
If you are suffering and seeing some of these signs, that’s enough.
