The Tea about Anxiety:
When does anxiety become too much?
1. When it interferes with your life
2. You struggle to find calm and peace from day to day.
3. Your brain cannot tell the difference between fearful situations in real life and fearful situations you created with your thoughts alone.
What is one type of anxiety?
General anxiety, social anxiety, specific fear/phobia, panic attacks or panic disorder
What role does avoidance play with anxiety?
Avoiding situations often make the anxiety worse in the long run. Avoiding prevents you from being able to have positive and healthy experiences that communicate to your brain that your anxious thoughts are not realistic or necessary.
True or False: Emotions can be really difficult to control.
True, emotions can be really difficult to control.
"What if I fail the test?" "What if I got a bad grade?" "What if I didn't answer all of the questions?" are all examples of what kind of anxiety?
Generalized Anxiety
What is one unhelpful way that does not help anxiety?
What is generalized anxiety?
Generalized anxiety gets its name because the anxiety experienced can be about anything- school, work, relationships with parents, teachers, friends, classmates, extracurricular activities, your safety, your health, and etc. You worry constantly and the brain thinks there is distressed.
What role does perfectionism play in anxiety?
By trying to achieve perfectionism, you will avoid the catastrophe your mind believes will happen- failure. Perfectionism is hard to achieve and by expecting to be perfect, you will feel more anxious when you are a human being and making mistakes are human.
What are 2 things that influences our emotions?
Amanda walks into school on the first day and does not make eye contact with others in the hallway. Amanda wears a sweatshirt so others can not judge her clothes or the pimple that she has on her face. Amanda avoids talking to anyone in the hallway because she does not want to sound annoying or feel embarrassed. This is an example of what kind of anxiety?
Social Anxiety.
How do people get anxiety?
2. Environment and experiences: if we watch a parent handle a situation with anxiety, we interpret how to handle the situation the same way. So you were taught that anxiety is the way to address your challenges.
What is social anxiety?
Social anxiety is intense and difficult to deal with. Social anxiety makes you think about others judging you and possibly rejecting you almost certainly. You are worried to be judged by the slightest things like bringing your lunch from home instead of of school. You feel that you will embarrass yourself, others will see your anxiety and judge you, feel rejected by peers and adults, and avoid social situations due to fear or distress.
What role does rumination play in anxiety?
Rumination is when you think about something over and over again. Your mind obsesses over the worry/event and your mind might believe that you will find an answer if you think about it long enough. Focusing your attention on the worry obsessively sends a message to the brain that there is something to worry about.
True or false: An emotion can influence our thoughts and actions.
True, an emotion can influence our thoughts an actions.
Fear of throwing up, fear of heights, fear of spiders are all examples of what?
Phobia or Specific fears
How many teens between 13-18 years old experience anxiety?
1/3 or around 35%
What are specific fears or phobias?
Phobias are excessive fears that are so intense that it stops the person from living their life normally. The fear is excessive and not proportional to the danger that the person is actually facing. The brain is tricked into thinking there is a significant threat and immediate danger even though there is no danger.
What role does compulsions play with anxiety?
Compulsions are when you feel like you need to do something to make the anxious thought or distress to go away. Compulsions are temporary fixes and your brain will feel like you must do this in order to feel relaxed. However, compulsions communicate to your brain that there is something to fear and that there's danger so anxiety will continue to return.
True or false: An action does not influence the way we think or feel.
False, an action can influence our thoughts and feelings/emotions.
A Panic attack.
True or False: Even though other individuals may not talk about their anxiety to others does not mean that they have never felt anxiety.
True, a person may or may not talk about their anxiety. It is up to the person to talk about it.
What are panic attacks or panic disorder?
Panic attacks are sudden bursts of fear, sometimes accompanied by physical discomfort. The discomfort peaks within 10 minutes (often less) and then slowly wears off. Panic attacks in teens are often triggered by stress or sometimes out of the blue. Panic attacks can cause a wave of fear, racing heart, and rapid breathing that makes you feel like you're dying/going crazy/going to pass out.
Panic disorder is the experience of sudden sensations of fear and sometimes physical discomfort.
What role does control play in anxiety?
An individual can feel like the worst will happen and by controlling things around them will prevent it from happening. When things don't go as planned or something unpredictable happens, the brain is convinced that the worst will happen and the anxiety will proceed.
True or false: If we think and behave differently, if can decrease our anxiety.
True, if we think and behave differently, if can decrease our anxiety.
Social anxiety. Social anxiety can prevent us from from doing things we love.