Whatcha Know about Anxiety?
- True or False -
Not everyone feels anxious
False - anxiety is a normal emotion that can be a response to stress, pressure, or feeling threatened.
It occurs in response to realistically anticipated danger and therefore is a survival instinct
Feeling anxious is very much a part of being a human. While everyone feels anxious from time to time, it can sometimes be a problem when the anxiety is causing a lot of distress or when it interferes with our ability to live our lives
This is a form of anxiety that may also be called worry. Worry is generally regarded as thinking repeatedly about future events.
It can be triggered by a variety of external events, or from thoughts that just pop into your head.
This worry generates more anxiety and more worry, which actually gets in the way of positive thinking and action.
Generalized Anxiety
What is the bodies response when a person is in danger, or believes that they are in danger
Fight/Flight response
Flee/remove self from the situation, or stand and fight. The main purpose of the fight/flight response is to protect the individual.
EXERCISE - Go on walks, hikes, to the gym; Why is this an effective coping skill / helps with anxiety?
Exercise naturally increases some of the brain proteins that help us learn that we are safe
Exercise helps anxiety by - Releasing endorphins, Distracting yourself, Increasing blood flow, Improving sleep, Building resilience
This English singer-songwriter, known for popular songs titled "Rolling in the Deep", "Hello", "Someone Like You" ; Suffers from Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Adele
Her anxiety has presented through throwing up before concerts. Her coping skill is using Humor
"When I get nervous, I try to bust jokes."
What is your experience with Anxiety? Share personal experiences/sysmptoms
Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, or uneasiness that can be mild or severe
Symptoms of anxiety include:
This type of anxiety is used to describe feelings of anxiety and fear that occur in response to social situations
Social Anxiety
When a person’s fight/flight response is activated, three major systems are affected.
What are these systems?
A - The nervous, urinary, and emotional systems.
B - The physical, cognitive and behavioral systems.
C - The cognitive, emotional, and circulatory systems.
D - The nervous, behavioral, and skeletal systems.
B - The physical, cognitive and behavioral systems.
This coping skill involves the process of inhaling and exhaling
Deep Breathing
Breathing tips
-When you first begin changing your breathing, it may be difficult to slow your breathing down to this rate. You may wish to try using a 3-in, 1- hold, 4-out breathing rate to start off with.
-When you are doing your breathing exercises, make sure that you are using a stomach breathing style rather than a chest breathing style. You can check this by placing one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest. The hand on your stomach should rise when you breathe in.
-Try to practice at least once or twice a day at a time when you can relax, relatively free from distraction. This will help to develop a more relaxed breathing habit. The key to progress really is practise, so try
Anxiety can cause Cold Feet and Hands
True or False?
True
When we feel anxious, the flight or fight response kicks in. When this occurs, blood flow is redirected from your extremities, such as your hands and feet, and towards the torso and vital organs. This creates the feeling of cold in your hands and feet.
Anxiety is our body’s response to ______ and _______.
What is stress and danger.
This is an intense and distressing fear of an object, animal, situation, or experience.
This fear or anxiety can be quite debilitating and may cause us to avoid certain tasks or activities, to the point that we neglect important matters at work, in social activities, in relationships, or our physical health.
Some common phobias include animals, heights, needles, and blood.
Although there may be some danger posed by some of these objects, animals, or situations, the anxiety experienced in a phobia is always out of proportion to the actual threat.
For example, imagining or looking at images of the thing someone is afraid of may be enough to cause anxiety or fear. Someone with a specific phobia may try to avoid the thing they are afraid of.
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
Your sympathetic nervous system is best known for its role in responding to dangerous or stressful situations. In these situations, your sympathetic nervous system activates to speed up your heart rate, deliver more blood to areas of your body that need more oxygen or other responses to help your get out of danger.
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is a network of nerves that activates the body's "fight or flight" response. It's one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the body's unconscious actions. The SNS is constantly active at a basic level to maintain homeostasis, but its activity increases when you're stressed, in danger, or physically active.
What is Progressive Muscle Relaxation?
In progressive muscle relaxation exercises, you tense up particular muscles and then relax them, and then you practice this technique consistently
Lets try it
This former Disney Channel star, has been vocal about her struggles with substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression.
Hints - Camp Rock and Cool for the Summer
Demi Lovato
On her 2013 appearance on Ellen she said "Sometimes you just have to take a step back so things stop stressing you"
Coping Skill - Walk away and Set Boundaries
What is the difference between Stress and Anxiety?
Stress is a short-term response to an external cause, like a difficult event or argument, while anxiety is the body's internalized response to stress and can persist even when there is no stressor.
This type of anxiety is used to describe the condition where panic attacks seem to happen unexpectedly rather than always in predictable situations
Panic disorder and agoraphobia
It is normal to feel some physical sensations when you’re feeling anxious. However, a panic attack is much more intense.
Includes a range of physical symptoms and anxious thoughts, and peaks within about 10 minutes.
Someone with panic disorder will often have a persistent fear of having another attack or worries about the consequences of the attack. Many people change their behaviour to try to prevent panic attacks. Some people are affected so much that they try to avoid any place where it might be difficult to get help or to escape from. When this avoidance is severe it is called agoraphobia.
True or False
Once a stressor is no longer present, your body will no longer feel anxious
False
Part of the process of restoration is that the systems do not return to normal straight away. Some arousal continues and this is for a very good reason. In primitive times, if a wild animal confronted us it would be foolish to relax and be off guard as soon as the animal began to back off. The chances of danger continuing in such a case causes the body to remain prepared for the need to once again face danger. Therefore, some residual effects of the fight/flight response remain for some time and only gradually taper off. This can leave the individual feeling ‘keyed up’ for some time afterwards. This helps to understand why it is that people can feel anxious for ongoing periods of time when no obvious stressor is present.
Over // Under
Do you think the group can name 10 coping skills?
Group Collab
Women are more likely than men to develop an anxiety disorder
True or False?
Women are twice as likely as men to develop an anxiety disorder
According to the ADAA, from the time a girl reaches puberty to the age of 50, she is twice as more likely to develop an anxiety disorder as a man. A woman’s fight or flight response is more easily activated and stays activated longer than a man’s – partly due to progesterone and estrogen. There’s also evidence to suggest that the female brain does not process serotonin as quickly as the male brain and they are more sensitive to low levels of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a hormone that organizes stress responses in mammals.
There are different types of anxiety disorders
Can you name at least two different types of anxiety disorders?
This is considered to be separate to anxiety disorders, but is associated with significant anxiety.
This occurs when a person has repetitive or recurring thoughts (obsessions) and/or behaviors that they feel the urge to repeat over and over (compulsions)
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessions are repeated thoughts, urges, or mental images that cause the person significant anxiety
Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that the person does in response to obsessions
For someone with OCD, these obsessions and/or compulsions cause a lot of distress and significantly interfere with their every day life
When your body has a flight/fight response and/or you get anxious, your body has physical changes. How many of these can you name?
1. An increase in heart rate and strength of beat
2. A redistribution of blood from areas that aren’t as vital to those that are
3. An increase in the rate and depth of breathing
4. An increase in sweating
5. Widening of the pupils of the eyes
6. Decreased activity of the digestive system
7. Muscle tension
This coping skill/technique can help calm you in the moment. It helps to shift your focus onto the physical environment and away from anxious thoughts.
What is this?
Grounding
Some grounding exercises you can try include:
You can also attempt to ground yourself by trying to focus on each of your senses in sequence. This grounding exercise is called the 5-4-3-2-1 technique:
Another similar technique for coping with anxiety is called the 3-3-3 rule. It involves the following steps:
This professional basketball player in the NBA, Who played for the Sacramento Kings and the Houston Rockets as a power forward. Had to take a leave of absence due to his experience with mental illness, specifically anxiety in the 2012-2013 season.
Royce White
"You can't just take Tylenol to deal with it. Being able to be level with people, being honest about your problem – that is a huge help."
Coping Skill - Talking about it, engaging in therapy and coming to group