What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a natural mood state characterised by feeling worried or nervous. It is completely normal to feel anxious about something you are finding stressful. You might notice that you feel tension in your muscles or butterflies in your stomach. Your heart rate may increase and your breathing may become shallower and quicker. This is entirely normal and all of us feel anxiety at different times. (1)

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When we feel anxious, as well as feeling physically different, it can change the way we think and behave. You might notice yourself worrying about an upcoming event (“I can’t stop thinking about an exam or an upcoming work deadline”) and then avoiding any reminders of the event (“I keep procrastinating instead of revising”). For some of us, anxiety provides a useful role in overcoming stressful events and may drive helpful behaviour (“It drove me to study for the exam”). (2)

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Anxiety is part of a hard-wired evolutionary ’fight, flight or freeze’ response that helps protect all animals from danger. It is an automatic response to perceived threat or danger. Physiologically it prepares us to respond to the threat and it should abate when the ‘threat’ has passed. 

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Sometimes, the source of the stress never seems to go, or there becomes too many sources of stress. When you start feeling like this for several weeks or months, it can affect your ability to live your life as you would like: to work effectively, enjoy your hobbies, connect with your friends and family and look after yourself. At this point, it becomes helpful to describe this as a medical condition - something we can identify and treat. (3)

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Video: Dr Adisha Kapila, Psychiatrist, explains the symptoms and impact of anxiety.

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There are lots of different types of anxiety that are recognised by doctors based on the symptoms you are experiencing and triggers that drive the anxious symptoms, for example:

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Research suggests there are risk factors associated with a higher chance of developing an anxiety illness. These include; (4)

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• Being female increases the risk of developing an anxiety disorder, although they are very common in general, irrespective of gender
• If other people in your family experience anxiety 
• If you have been under a lot of physical or emotional stress
• If you have had difficult experiences in your childhood that have caused you significant stress 
• If you suffer from chronic pain or a physical illness 
• If you have been using alcohol or recreational drugs

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If you think you might be experiencing ongoing symptoms of anxiety, or if you are unsure, we would always recommend asking. Please look through our Getting Help For My Mental Health resources.

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