Brainstorm: Life Between the Ears

Anxiety is a lot like a toddler. It never stops talking, tells you you’re wrong about everything, and wakes you up at 3 a.m. — Anonymous

Racing thoughts, muscle tension, uncontrollable worry, pounding heart, shallow breathing, chest pressure, dizziness, nausea, feeling as though you want to crawl out of your skin...sound familiar? If so, you are not alone. In fact, 40 million people in the United States are currently experiencing these symptoms as you read this. Anxiety is by far the most common complaint of individuals seeking therapy, and yet only 30 percent of individuals with anxiety seek professional help at all.

Anxiety can be a complicated beast. We live in a society where we are inundated with demands on our time, smothered with social media, overwhelmed with bills, under whelmed with income, surrounded by trauma, and overstimulated with choices. We sleep less, worry more, minimize physical activity and struggle to make quality time for family and friends. And it’s killing us.

An article in the British Journal of Psychiatry, (Volume 209, Issue 3) reported a large study in which all anxiety disorders, with exception to phobias, were associated with higher overall mortality rates. The risk for natural (cancer, respiratory, digestive, cardiac, and other disease) death was increased among patents with acute stress reaction, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and social phobia. The risk for unnatural (suicide, homicide, accident) death was more than doubled in patents with these same disorders.

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