Where does anxiety come from? Many people begin to experience some oppressive feeling. It seems like everything seems normal, we do not see any problems, but the feeling in my heart as if something terrible is about to happen. Familiar?
You're not alone. During life, almost all people experience this feeling, but some experience it chronically. To answer the question of what to do about it, you first need to understand what anxiety is in General.
Anxiety is a feeling akin to fear, but unlike it, it has no clear cause.
However, this does not mean that there is no reason. There's always a reason. This may be some unresolved life situation, health problems, something changed in the environment, as well as the abuse of various psychoactive substances.
Is there anxiety in the soul without a reason?
Many clients come to me, experiencing a sense of anxiety for several months.Often they say that everything in their life seems to be normal, there is no reason for alarm, but always in the end it turns out that in fact this is not so.
In the psyche of each person laid special algorithms that allow you to identify dangerous moments of life. Some of them are genetically ingrained in us, but many have been shaped by our experiences.
We constantly perceive a huge amount of information, but much of it does not reach our consciousness. However, our brain still processes it. If some information has not reached our consciousness, but it worked "security algorithms", we feel alarm.
Therefore, if you feel anxiety for a long period of time, then there is definitely a reason, you just do not realize it. For some reason this reason has escaped your attention.
If this information had reached consciousness, we would have experienced some other feeling. Anxiety is a signal to us that something has changed and something is wrong.
You should not dismiss this feeling and try to crush it somehow in yourself. It's like trying to suppress hunger or pain. It's not the feeling, it's the reason that caused it.
Causes of anxiety in the soul
The reasons can be very diverse, but let's touch at least the most common.
1. Driven problem. Quite often people are faced with problems that are very difficult to solve, or for some reason do not want to do it. Then, in order not to spoil the mood once again, people prefer about them “forget.” For some time it works, but all the same somewhere on the periphery of consciousness at the person there is a tick that something not so.
It's like turning off the siren when the alarm goes off. Like do not hear anything, but some red light flashes.
2. Underestimation of emotional turmoil. Often people underestimate how much they are influenced by some situations. For example, a person has some grief, but he begins to deny the importance of this event for himself. If a person acts in this way, he can really believe that he is all right. The problem is, his emotions don't think so.
3. Sluggish conflict situation. It happens that in life a person has a conflict that is implicit, hidden form. Like and nothing concrete, but there is a sense of, that “clouds are gathering.”
4. Change of scene. Sometimes, in a life-changing kind of detail that seems to be invisible, but something is wrong. This is just an example of the operation of the "security algorithm". As in the song Vysotsky “The same forest, the same air, and the same water, but he did not return from the battle.”
The problem is that we often do not understand that something is important to us and when it disappears, anxiety arises.
5. Neurosis. If nothing is done with the feeling of anxiety, it can pass into a new quality, which will have a chronic nature. For example, an alarm may become associated with some extraneous event. As a result, you may develop a phobia.
6. Alcohol abuse. Sometimes, anxiety is purely chemical in nature. For example, excessive libations can unbalance the chemistry of the brain. Disturbed production of " hormones of happiness” and the person feels it as anxiety in the soul.
One night of alcohol can be worth five days of oppressive anxiety. If a person begins to pour alcohol over this feeling again, he begins to fall into an "emotional debt pit", which can end in alcoholic psychosis.
7. Endocrine disorders. Quite often there is a situation when a person has problems with the work of the endocrine glands. This can cause a variety of emotional reactions, including depression and anxiety.
What to do with anxiety in the soul?
Working with anxiety is a long and multidimensional process that requires the work of a specialist. However, if you can not for some reason to consult a psychologist, you can try to cope with it yourself.
The first thing to do is to check your health. Sign up to the clinic and go to the doctors. It's useful anyway. Only after you eliminate health-related causes can you proceed to work directly with anxiety.
Normalize your lifestyle
The work of our psyche is closely related to the body. Many causes of mental problems are associated with the wrong way of life.
1. Normalize sleep. A person should sleep at least 8 hours. If this is not done, the body appears imbalance. Impaired production of neurotransmitters and hormones, which is directly related to mood, mental and physical tone, health.
2. Normalize the power. If the body receives an insufficient amount of nutrients, vitamins and so on, it also has a serious impact on our physical and psychological health. Eat more cheese and cottage cheese, it contributes to the production of serotonin.
3. Normalize physical activity. Physical activity is a necessary condition for the normalization of metabolic processes in the body, which are very closely related to the human psyche.
4. Be outdoors for at least one hour a day.
5. Do not drink alcohol, tobacco and other psychoactive substances. They depress the nervous system.
If you follow these recommendations, it is precisely the anxiety in the soul will be slightly reduced, due to the fact that the resource of your psyche will increase.
Remember the events that occurred just before the alarm.
Quite often people do not connect the situation with their emotional state. They say, " No! This has nothing to do with it!”. Quite often it turns out quite the opposite.
Ask ourselves:
1. Were you arguing with someone?
2. Have you received any criticism? Fair?
3. Do you have any unsolved problems in your life?
4. Do you have any "duty" (in a broad sense)?
5. Have you experienced a strong emotional shock?
Try to answer these questions honestly. Perhaps you will notice something that has been hidden from you. In life, people have things that they do not want to know about, but which still affect them.
If this does not help, you should contact a psychologist.
How can a psychologist help treat anxiety?
There is a direction in psychotherapy, which has shown the highest efficiency in the treatment of anxiety disorders. This area is called CBT (Cognitive behavioral therapy).
This is the only kind of psychotherapy that is built not on speculative ideas, but on a solid empirical and scientific basis. There are many scientific studies that have proven the effectiveness of this method. Therefore, I recommend that you contact the specialists of this area, to which I refer myself.
How does it work?
During the day, a person thinks about 60000-70000 thoughts. Only some of them we are aware of, as most of them are swept in a fraction of a second. However, any thought, conscious or not, evokes an emotional response in us.
Such lightning thoughts are called automatic. Quite often we automatically think about something bad, we begin to look at the world through black glasses.
The psychologist can help to identify and correct such automatic thoughts, which allows a person to change the angle of view of the problem. This in turn removes anxiety.
This is achieved not just by talking, but also by special exercises that allow a person to develop a new, more adaptive response to various stimuli.
In addition to automatic thoughts, various destructive beliefs can cause anxiety in the soul. The psychologist can identify them, present to the client and offer something more valuable in return.
All together, it provides the highest efficiency in the treatment of anxiety disorders. These are not speculative ideas, but the result of empirical scientific research.
The effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy is confirmed by 452 scientific studies. Therefore, if you want to get rid of anxiety quickly and permanently, then this is exactly what you need.