Something for Anxiety sufferers to Read

[Gulfstream2]

Hi to everyone,

I have been doing some reading up on the psychology of anxiety and I wanted to mention a few things. Also anybody that has anxiety, feel free to comment on what I've read about. This is quite intriguing. I read these statements from a book I just have started to scan through on Google Books and the points they bring up are eye-opening. It begins with the interpretations of anxiety, fear and immeninent threat and how they differ since some mix these terms up.

"...Fear as an Emotion -

Emotion theorists distinguish basic emotions, such as fear, from more pervasive cognitive affective states, such as anxiety. Izard (1992) distinguishes four basic emotions of fear, sadness, excitement, and anger from cognitive associations or elaborations that connect basic emotions to events, meanings, and responses. In this approach, unlike fear, anxiety is a cognitive association or elaboration rather than an emotion. Basic emotions are construed as hardwired biological events of primitive origin, whereas cognitive associations represent higher-order cognitive processes tha are less hardwired and more individually dependent on life experiences..."

This just a quick excerpt but it carries an important and very pleasant fact. Many folks with bad anxiety think they are stuck with it for years or all their lives but this isn't so. So anxiety isn't really a "natural" response in the first place, but a higher-functioning of the brain that correlates with fear. It isn't something that is, as they say, "hardwired" into us, it is something that is only temporary but is dominant since it involves this component of fear which is a natural hardwired response that we all have. Obviously the fear allows us in a situation like coming face to face with a bear, to realize that hey, this is a really dangerous scenario and to get the heck out of there as quickly as possible, you know, the typical fight or flight response. But the anxiety is just an association with some event no matter what it may be (whatever yours may be) but it is not something that you are stuck with. Anxiety can be highly elaborative, that is a given fact considering that many who are very anxious or have an anxiety disorder experience the kind of thinking that is catastrophic to some degree. But again, this is all elaboration, but over time it seem to become more and more evident simply because it is a reinforced habit and it can be fairly easy to develop because it is correlated with one of our naturally built-in emotional respones: Fear. I think that understanding this fact is a step in overcoming it for those who are currently dealing with their bout of anxiety or are confused about it.

So anxiety isn't one of the four basic emotions we all share, but an offspring of it, and one that forms mainly from associations of feelings with certain events. And it is truly, a temporary thing.  

Anyway, I thought this would be a great thing to post for some to see and I hope it can help those with anxiety. Best wishes to all, and know that you are getting better bit by bit.

[Gulfstream2]

Very good point, and that is certainly true.

Have you read about neuroplasticity (you have probably have since you're a nurse) and how neural pathways change according to behavioural reinforcements? Its really amazing stuff, especially the research done by Joseph LeDoux. If you can get a mouse to fear a sound tone paired with an electric shock, over and over and over again, those neural pathways associated with fear and anxiety will be strengthened more and more. Eventually, the mouse is conditioned to the stimuli, and just the sound of the tone can elicit the feelings and responses of the electric shock when it was encountered. But after time and time again, when conditioning the mouse to respond to the sound by stroking it, and calimg it, over many sessions the old "fear / anxiety pathway" became weaker and weaker. The mouse was then succesfully reconditioned. The same thing can be done with humans, even with the stimulus being a mental image or a thought that provokes the person with the sensations of anxiety that are associated with the stimulus.

They did same thing with a giant sea snail called Aplysia, and were literally able to study the nerve cells (very large neurons) as it was being conditioned and deconditioned to a stimulus (electric shocks). Over time, it caused extinction of the behaviour of the snail when it felt a touch. The same thing happens to us, but since we have a highly evolved neocortex, the catalyst isn't always something real but just bad thought processes. But the thoughts can be treated as the activating stimulus and then the person is taught to unlearn the anxiety, which is the target of CBT - changing your thinking for good and that allows the change in behaviour over a long time. Have you read the book "The Brain That Changes Itself"? It is really something to read. That one and another, "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman.

Good to hear that you are doing well, despite the soreness - best wishes.

[nursegirl6572]

I agree completely, the only difference is, for most people with an anxiety disorder, the struggle is life long, with periods of what I call "anxiety remission" and periods of exacerbation.  I just think some of us are "wired" differently, and those anxious ways of thinking are hard to overcome.

Thanks for the well wishes, very very sore today.  I posted two pics of my rental car.  SCARY moment!  I'm so grateful it wasn't worse than that, or that my kids weren't with me!

[Gulfstream2]

Thanks for your reply Nursegirl.

I agree completely, I was just touching on the point that many think that the anxiety that is experienced with an anxiety disorder such as GAD or panic disorder or even OCD think that it is something that might get built in over time when it is really only temporary because some parts of our brain fire up a bit too much or get stuck in gear per se.

Some may think that by having an anxiety episode it hinders them but like you say it is all based off an imaginary foundation (the things that go on in our heads) and it is amplified to extraordinary proportions - making a mountain out of molehill.

But yes, educating yourself about it really can be therapeutic in some I way suppose because as you stated, when you know about it, and you understand the mechanics of it than that is big step foward in the right direction. Best regards and I'm sorry to hear about your car accident, hope all is well.

[nursegirl6572]

Good information.

I always share with people that anxiety is a very real and necessary emotion for humans.  Like you mentioned above, the fight or flight response is life preserving in dangerous situations, and anxiety is a way our brains warn us of potential danger, so it is necessary.  One may feel anxious if they notice a shady looking person hanging out near our car in a parking lot.  That resulting anxiety heightens our awareness and makes us think carefully about how to proceed in that situation to not place ourselves in harm's way.

Anxiety can also be reactive, for instance (something I experienced yesterday for the first time)...a car accident.  It's normal to be anxious in those kinds of situations, and it's funny...in my case, I didn't see the other car that hit me, so for about 30 seconds afterwards, I was just stunned, sitting there, trying to figure out what happened.  I was completely calm.  Once my brain got the message that I had been in an accident, the anxiety hit..I was shaking from head to toe.  It's a natural response.

In an anxiety disorder, anxiety is problematic for a few reasons.  For one, the "fear" or perceived danger isnt real, or isn't as severe as our brains make it out to be.  The anxiety is disproportionate to the fear, bigtime.  Another characteristic of an anxiety disorder is that it affects our lives negatively, where we exhibit avoidant behavior, and other maladaptive reactions to the anxiety.  It's at that point, professional intervention is needed.

An example...EVERY person has thought about death and dying at some point, but for someone with an anxiety disorder, thoughts of death, worries of a fatal health condition, or accident, consumes the thoughts.  The cycle of anxious thinking has begun.  The fear causes anxiety, which in turn makes us think more about the fear, which brings more anxiety...around and around it goes.

This is why CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy is SO helpful for people with anxiety disorders, because it tackles that cycle of thinking...helping us to learn how to interrupt those thoughts.

Thanks for sharing this info.  I think it's great for people who have anxiety to learn as much as they can about it, for many reasons.  One, the more you understand it, the more it makes sense, and also, it's reassuring to find out that the things you're experiencing are REAL symptoms and effects of anxiety.  It is so scary for a person having their first panic attack, or first intrusive thought.  once they learn about it, and understand that it is all part of chronic anxiety, it is like a HUGE load lifted.

Thanks again.