“Feelings of anxiety are something that everyone has at some point in their life. But, it can be excessive. And when it’s a lot of anxiety that is persistent and impacts our daily life, then that would be potentially diagnosed as an anxiety disorder. We all have feelings of nervousness or anxiousness which is fear and worry, at different times in our life. So that’s something that can also be just a normal reaction to stress,” JoAnna Dickinson, MSW, Counselor at Church on the Ridge said.
Dickinson went on to reflect on a personal level: “[Anxiety] is something that I do struggle with. Things that help me are talking through things or taking a thought that might be false thinking and examining it. Then recognizing like ‘okay, that’s not true’ and ‘that’s not accurate.’ When we take our thoughts and we take them captive, as the Bible says, and we present them and examine them, then we can actually work on our thought life and make it better and that’s helped me a lot [in] dealing with anxiety and also recognizing my triggers and then also just working on breathing differently when I am starting to feel overwhelmed or feel my heart racing.
“[When I was younger] I was never taught to identify what I was feeling or pay attention to my feelings and I think that is something that is very important for everyone to learn at a young age. We need to understand ‘what am I feeling right now?’ ‘what am I thinking?’ and examine those things because those thoughts can then create our next action and if we understand more about what we’re feeling, our thoughts, and how we respond as a result, it gives us more control over the outcome. Otherwise we can feel so trapped inside or even panic and spiral out of control because there’s a lack of internal awareness.”
When asked to differentiate stress and anxiety, Dickinson explained how “Stress is just kind of like a culmination of a lot of stuff going on and sometimes feeling overwhelmed with things that are happening. If you start to worry about the stress, that’s when it can become anxiety. Stress can then create anxiety if you allow it.”
“A physical reaction [to anxiety] would be like a fast heartbeat, rapid breathing, you might feel sweaty and shaky, trembling, etc. And so those are all some of the physical manifestations of anxiety,” Dickinson added.
“Really working on your thought patterns can make a difference in your anxiety, but there’s no simple fix. Some people want to find a simple fix and sometimes jump straight to medication, but that’s not something that I recommend because you have to learn tools and ways to cope and if you have anxiety and have had it for a long time, chances are you’re going to have it for the rest of your life. It’s just a matter of learning tools on how to control it better instead of it controlling you,” Dickinson concluded.
Next week, JoAnna Dickinson will go on to explain how to cope with having anxiety, steps to take when combating anxiety, and how to find hope when your anxiety seems never-ending. Stay tuned!
EMILY DICKINSON 