so what is anxiety well anxiety in itself is neither good nor bad it's just an emotion
it's an emotion just like happiness, anger , sadness, it is something we have built in
it's something which is actually very useful despite what everybody is saying because
it's your internal alarm system that is telling you that something not right, there's a threat
around you and you should do something about it. And what the anxiety does, it tends to trigger
what is called the fight-or-flight response, which actually is a freeze fight-or-flight
response because under threat, if you under attack, you have three options: you play dead,
you run like hell or you fight like hell. Those are three options that you get.
so as you have anxiety building up it's pushing you more and more
okay pick one of those options, pick one of those options
and it's really building you up towards those responses
and it's getting your body ready to do that fast
it's a built-in, it's a very ancient system
we share that with many animals in the animal kingdom
from lizards to horses to dogs, birds, whatever
and that alarm system really what it does is as you're under threat
prepares you, so what's happening is you have
a lot of physical symptoms kicking in
so as you start to get more and more anxious
the first thing you're going to notice is your heart rate increasing
to get more blood in your body
your breathing becomes more shallow and faster trying to get more oxygen in your blood
so you can act, faster and harder
you will notice as well maybe some tingling,
maybe in your arms and legs as all the blood supply
goes away from your skin to the major muscle groups
such as your legs and your arms
you will notice for the same reason butterflies in your stomach
or the digestive system just shutting down because that's not the essential
so the energy goes to where it needs to go to fight the threat
the immune system as well tends to shut down for a while
whilst you are under pressure, while you're in an anxious state
because now is not the time to fight disease
now it's time to fight the bear or whatever is coming your way
and the other thing as well is the more anxious you get
the more your cognitive function, your high level function shuts down
basically you end up in a brain fog, you got tunnel vision
and you can't think clear anymore
because if you're under threat now is not the time to think
like hmm that bear coming my way there,
is it hungry, is it angry maybe he's like aaah I'm dead
so basically we've evolved to survive by
running away as much as we can not by debating
whether or not we can deal with this threat adequately
you have to act fast and now
so thinking? Not now. so
that's why maybe, for example, if you feel a bit anxious
you may read an email or try to do a simple task
and you just can't do it that's the brainfog that comes with it
that's normal.
So that's all the symptoms from anxiety
So if anxiety is normally, if anxiety is actually useful on the threat
when is it a problem?
Well there's a couple of things here
one thing is that we've evolved to use anxiety for non-physical threats as well
so we now become anxious for deadlines,
job interviews, first dates even or anything like that or
or maybe or something I said to someone "what will they think about it",
all these kind of things which are not physically dangerous
are perceived by your brain as a threat
and triggers that anxiety disorder and
when exactly it becomes a problem it's when we've got too much of it
because anxiety was developed as a spiked response to a threat
you get attacked by something, you deal with those threats
you come down and you move on okay
that's how it should be like, that's why it's been
evolved to become this way
but as a human we tend to have too many issues with anxiety
one is that our alarm system becomes far far too sensitive
imagine if you have a fire alarm in your kitchen
that will trigger at the thought of making your toast
for some people it's that sensitive and it will trigger out of nowhere
for many many many reasons okay, it's not their fault
that's just whether it's trauma or they're under threat all the time
many different reasons so that's one thing, far too sensitive alarm system
the other one is when you are in a chronic state of anxiety as well
so instead of "okay, the anxiety, deal with a threat, calm down, move on"
we are in that state where all the energy, all the resources are geared
toward "freeze, fight or flight" and none of it is designed for "rest and digest and repair"
so over time it becomes very damaging on your body
your immune system is down, you can't think clearly
you're flooded with stress hormones, it's exhausting
it's damaging your body because it's not designed for that
so that way it becomes a problem and it will then trigger
a lot of different health problems moving on, a lot of tension and things like that
so not a good thing
so the next question would be "is it common?"
unfortunately yes, it is quite common
I've got some some figures here and in a survey in Great Britain
1 in 6 adults had experienced some form of
neurotic health problems in the previous week
now the most common neurotic disorder that were experienced
were anxiety and depressive disorders
more than 1 in 10 people are likely to have a disabling anxiety disorder at some stage
in their lives, that's a lot!
and an estimated 13% of the population will develop
a specific form of anxiety known as a phobia at some point in their life
just for that 13%t of people will develop a phobia
so all those anxiety issues comes in different forms
it could be like I said phobias like agoraphobia, claustrophobia and so on
general anxiety disorder where you go that overwhelming sense of doom and dread
it could be health anxiety, it could be OCD, hoarding, PTSD, social anxiety
and that's just in just a few, there are many many different symptoms on that
now is it treatable?
well you don't cure anxiety
you don't get rid of anxiety because again it's a natural useful internal system
that we all have
what we aim to do is to bring it back under control,
to reset it like if your burglar alarm is triggering all the time
you're not just taking out the batteries out of it
what you do you call an engineer, they go and fix it, they reset it
and you now have a functioning alarm so you are safe
same thing with anxiety
you reset the alarm, you bring it back under control, so it does its job properly
and you move on with your life
so this course will give you a lot of different tried and tested tools
that will help you reduce the sensitivity of your alarm system
and help you get back under control of it as much as you can
so I hope you will enjoy the rest of the course
thank you very much