Anxiety and its Purpose

Many people talk about anxiety and how to deal with it. But should we always cope with it? I would say "no", and this is why...

💥 Anxiety is a feeling signalling that something threatens us. Anxiety differs from fear in that it is non-specific, abstract, it mobilizes all our senses so that we can recognize the threat as soon as possible and take action. Fast, right away.

Therefore, it is extremely logical that when we feel insecure, we are highly mobilized, tense, reacting to everything, we do not know where to run, where to hide, whom to attack. In moments of such intense stress, anxiety begins to interfere with our functioning. It is important to be able to cope with this excessive level of anxiety, which has a destructive effect on our well-being, communication with people and the performance of normal routine activities. There are exercises and techniques for this (many on the Internet and books, for example, R. Leahy).

❕However, do not forget that anxiety, in general, exists for a reason, it is indeed evolutionarily necessary, and it will not completely disappear from our lives. How else can we respond to threats in time? Suppressing the alarm all the time, ignoring it is like when the fire alarm is howling, you sense smoke and it gets hot - and you are trying to convince yourself that everything will be fine, and anxiety is pointless.

🔹So, what can we do after we stopped the panic and regained the ability to think?

Pay attention to what our body and mind are telling us. What threatens us now?

Perhaps we can change something, perhaps we can think about how to act in different circumstances, perhaps we will understand that in fact there is a Force Majeure and we can only accept it.

The point is, we have already made an objectified threat out of abstract anxiety.

✨ And the moment anxiety goes away because it has fulfilled its function: we don’t have to be afraid of everything in the world, sensitively and quickly respond to everything, because we have discovered the source of danger, and we will focus on it.