The Illness behind Anxiety

I have made an observation that behind anxiety are 3 conditions:
The first of which is lack of a state of grace called Syukur . Of course there are reasons beyond the 3 things I am going to expand on but correcting these 3 states will actually go a long way in healing from anxiety ..I will be adding to this article daily I hope, since lately I found myself with a severe time managment problem , meaning I have too many things to do and the same time as everybody else to do it in...plus of course indulging in time wasting activities like getting stuck with a Korean TV series ...aaarrrgh!

And here is an anecdote I found from the defective yeti blog. It is a variation of what I am used to hearing.

I wept because I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet.

And Lord, all that guy could talk about was having no feet. He'd be, like, "Return of the King? No, I haven't seen that movie ... because I have no feet!" Or "thanks for the pie but I didn't really enjoy it, what with the having no feet and all."

So I reminded him that there were men with no legs. That shut him up.

Plus, then I found my shoes under the bed, so everything worked out great.

Posted on January 26, 2004

So what is anxiety and how does it manifest?
From the Wikipedia I have this:

Anxiety

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Anxiety is a complex combination of the feeling of fear, apprehension and worry often accompanied by physical sensations such as palpitations, chest pain and/or shortness of breath. It may exist as a primary brain disorder or may be associated with other medical problems including other psychiatric disorders.

Anxiety is often described as having a cognitive, a somatic, an emotional and a behavioral component (Seligman, Walker & Rosenhan, 2001). The cognitive component entails expectation of a diffuse and uncertain danger. Somatically the body prepares the organism to deal with threat (known as an emergency reaction); blood pressure and heart rate are increased, sweating is increased, bloodflow to the major muscle groups is increased, and Immune and digestive system functions are inhibited. Externally, somatic signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling and pupillary dilation. Emotionally, anxiety causes a sense of dread or panic, nausea and chills. Behaviorally, both voluntary and involuntary behaviors may arise directed at escaping or avoiding the source of anxiety. These behaviors are frequent and often maladaptive in the anxiety disorders. However, anxiety is not always pathological or maladaptive: it is a common emotion alongside fear, anger, sadness and happiness, and it has a very important function in relation to survival.

Neural circuitry involving the amygdala and hippocampus is thought to underlie anxiety (Rosen & Schulkin, 1998). When confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show an increased bloodflow in the amygdala (Zald & Pardo, 1997; Zald, Hagen & Pardo, 2002). In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors such as feeding on rotten food.

A chronically recurring case of anxiety that has a serious effect on a person's life may be clinically diagnosed as an anxiety disorder. The most common are Generalized anxiety disorder, Panic disorder, Social anxiety disorder, phobias, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

You d be surprised how many of my patients have anxiety and how many people go in and out of clinic after clinic because of anxiety. I had a chance to address this issue with two people yesterday , one was a friend and the other was a patient, an old lady who had been coming to me many times because of anxiety.My friend on the other hand was a stickler for order and cleanliness and had to stay with her mother in law in a very disorderly and untidy not to mention grubby house! You can imagine the level of anxiety she had. As she put it , it felt as if her heart would explode! She had been putting up with it for more than 15 years !

I put it to both of them that the problem lay in 'diseases of the heart ' and I did not mean the physical heart but the spiritual one! The 3 'diseases' I said to them was

1. lack of thankfullness ( shukur)
2.lack of acceptance ( redha)
3.lack of letting go ie let go and let God ( tawakkal)

To be continued.