Anxiety affects one out of every four people at some point in their lives. If you’ve ever had anxiety, you’ll be all too familiar with the frantic chase that appears out of nowhere. Here are some anxiety facts that will hopefully help you make sense of your situation.
Anxiety is a hereditary condition: If one or both of your parents suffer from anxiety, there’s a good risk that you will as well. This is where the nature/nurture debate comes into play. Anxiety can be handed down down the generations via genes (nature) or parental behaviour (nurture).
Anxiety can cause physical discomfort: Anxiety has a strong physical basis. When the brain senses a threat (real or imagined – it doesn’t care) it will surge the body with a cocktail of neurochemicals to provide the physical resources to fight for life or run for it.
Anxiety is the body’s fight or flight response in full force: When there’s nothing to fight or run from, the stress chemicals that are coursing through your body have nowhere to go, so they build up, causing physical symptoms of worry. The fight or flight response is naturally followed by physical activity.
Anxiety can mess with your sense of smell: People with anxiety had a higher tendency to classify neutral aromas as negative odours, according to research published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
People who suffer from anxiety are more sensitive to changes in facial expressions: People who suffer from anxiety are more sensitive to changes in facial expressions than those who do not.
