Cause of Anxiety

While anxiety is a condition that affects many people, the cause of anxiety may not be so obvious. Anxiety is more obvious and more of a problem when people face difficult or stressful situations.

The first step is to understand it. Some people think it is the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain or from environmental pressures or unclear thinking.

Your home life is one of the first places to look. Marriages, parenthood, in-laws, siblings, and such are sometimes some of the biggest sources of stress and anxiety.

Relationships and Social Pressure

Friends can even fall into this category. Look relationships and figure out which ones may be causing the anxiety. (It is usually very easy to figure this out.) If you find the anxiety triggers are family or friend related you might need to seek some sort of counseling with those people to help resolve it. This is not a chemical basis of anxiety and does not merit needing a pill; it also does not need long periods of ‘therapy’- it needs some good communications and feedback. Even if the other party will not attend sessions with you, you can learn skills and behaviors to help you deal with the relationship without all the stress.

Fears

Sometimes the actual cause of the anxiety may be a simple fear. Fears can be real or imaginary. Fear protects us from dangerous situations. Normally fear can be your friend. If what you see and or hear around you generates fear pay attention.

Phobias

Phobias are extreme and irrational fears based on a prior experience. People may ‘freak out’ if they see a snake or spider, or if they may avoid social situations or activities like riding in an elevator if they have a fear of being trapped or confined to a small place.

Situational Anxiety

Often the cause of anxiety stems from situations and actions you must make. If your job has you speaking in public and your fear is of public speaking, you will have anxiety.

Public Speaking

Feeling anxious about is very common and understandable. First of all public speaking is a skill and it is something you can learn to do. You can take a class in public speaking or acting. Classes, workshops are generally safe environments where there is some expectation that people will ‘screw up’ or make mistakes. In the case of public speaking, try speaking to small groups, and slowly increase the group size until you have overcome the fear and the anxiety is a thing of the past.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Sometimes the cause of anxiety stems from fatigue, or it could be fatigue stems from the anxiety. If you find you are too tired to function well you need to look at what is causing you to feel tired in the first place. Is your job repetitive and boring? Are you emotional? Sometimes anxiety crops up when we are simply tired. Try adding an extra hour in at night to sleep. Try sneaking in a catnap during the day and see if this will rejuvenate you out of the anxiety. If it does not, take a look at the circumstances you are in and determine the source of the fatigue causing anxiety.

Finding Your Answers

Finding the cause of the anxiety and the method in which to deal with it may take some detective work. Every person reacts to situations differently and it is a matter of figuring out the triggers, then following a path for treatment be it with a change in attitude, counseling or turning to natural methods in the form of supplements and when needed to seek medical advice and prescription medications. If you are still at a loss to finding a solution, then by all means seek professional help because that may be the only way you will find relief.