What is Normal Anxiety?

Anxiety, depression, worry and fear can be very normal. You become anxious when threatened or when you think about being threatened. The heart beats fast, there is a need to overbreathe, you get the cold sweats and shakes. These are all normal changes that will help your body function best if you have to run or fight. But in this modern world we are threatened and get anxious in places where physical activity does not help. Thus the body changes are identified not as helpful but as harmful and unnatural. But being a little anxious is good. It sharpens up judgement and skill and helps you cope better. Being psyched up is a good thing if you have a difficult challenge ahead.

If you become anxious over and over in the same situation then you will learn to fear that situation and try to avoid it and others like it. If you know that you will have to deal with the situation sometime in the future you will worry about it, hopefully using the worry to think of a way of solving the problem. If all goes badly and you lose something you value or love then you will get depressed, which can be helpful in giving you time to recover from the loss. So being anxious, fearful, worried or depressed can be a useful part of a normal life.

Small amounts of these feelings can be helpful and actually improve your ability to cope. Persistent or severe anxiety, fear, worry or depression feels awful, and can reduce your ability to cope with your difficulties. And not coping can make things a lot worse. There are simple ways of controlling the levels of these feelings. They can be used together. We will describe them separately, for the feeling they best control.
Anxious?

Anxiety is normal and helps you face challenges Anxiety means feeling nervous, heart beating fast, can't get your breath, dizzy, shaking, sweaty while doing nothing. The feelings would be normal if there was a challenge, or you'd just been running.

When anxiety is severe or lasts a long time it reduces your ability to plan and do things. A method of controlling it is useful. The method depends on controlling the overbreathing that the anxiety causes. Doing this will reduce your anxiety at the time.

1. Counting your breathing rate:

Get a watch or clock with a second hand and count your breathing for two minutes. Count each breath in and out as one. Write down how many breaths you took in the two minutes. Divide this number by two to get the number of breaths per minute. The average person breathes in and out ten times a minute when calm and still. If you are anxious it is easy to get rates of 20 per minute. It helps to keep a chart listing the time, place and what you have just been doing and the breathing rate. If you do this four times a day for some weeks you will discover what makes you anxious.

2. Controlling fast breathing:

• hold your breath for 6 seconds (time it)
• breathe in and out every 6 seconds (10 breaths a minute)
• say relax under your breath as you breathe out
• after a minute hold your breath again for 6 seconds
• breathe in and out every six seconds
• say relax under your breath as you breathe out
• stop when your anxiety drops.

Practice slow breathing for one minute 4 times a day. Then it will be easy to use when you get anxious and need it.

If you don't practice it will be impossible to remember what to do when you are in a situation that is making you anxious.

Edited by Gavin Andrews MD, UNSW, 2007
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