Anxiety is the emotion we experience when we anticipate danger. Anxiety can come from “real” threats, such as close-calls while driving a car, or from “potential” threats such as worry about an illness that you may or may not have. Anxiety impacts the body by starting the fight-flight-freeze response, impacts the mind by focusing all thoughts on the threat, and impacts behavior by often times encouraging avoidance of an anxiety-provoking stimuli.

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Symptoms of anxiety include: 

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• Feeling on-edge or agitated

• Difficulty concentrating

• Consistent fatigue

• Increased heart rate

• muscle tension

 

Anxiety is a normal emotion that all humans and animals experience and is not problematic on its’ own. However, when anxiety impacts happiness, well-being, or ones’ ability to accomplish goals it may be helpful to seek therapy. A therapist trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may be helpful for people to understand and move on from anxiety that negatively impacts them.