7 tips to know if I have an anxiety problem

Anxiety is not only not a problem or a sign of poor mental health: it is part of the coping mechanisms that help us adjust to day-to-day challenges. That is why everyone comes to feel, at some point or another, discomfort from anxiety. That it is an annoying experience does not mean that it is a bad thing.

However, if there are certain circumstances in which biological predispositions and day-to-day experiences are mixed, anxiety can become too intense or persistent. It can also appear through dysfunctional patterns, and lead to psychopathologies.

To recognize what is the dividing line between simple anxiety discomfort and a psychological problem associated with anxiety is complex, but in this article we will help you to recognize it.

• Related article: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

How do you know if your anxiety is normal or pathological?

These are several questions you should ask yourself to recognize anxiety problems that can come to be considered a sign of impaired mental health. Of course, the definitive diagnosis is made by professionals in this field, but look at in these issues it will help you to detect alterations in time that must be intervened from the therapy. Fortunately, anxiety disorders can be treated and overcome with the help of psychologists.

1. Have you been feeling regular distress for weeks?

The time factor is important. There are those who do not feel extremely high levels of anxiety. But if you have fairly high or very high levels over a long period of time, this can also be a problem that deserves to be treated in therapy since it could be, for example, an Anxiety Disorder Generalized. This is characterized because the person is not even able to identify a specific reason why they feel this way.

2. Do you notice that your muscle tension frequently bothers you?

Anxiety is not only a psychological phenomenon, it also manifests itself through physical symptoms. One of the most common is muscle tension. In extreme cases it leads to the appearance of tremors, but in more moderate forms (although not necessarily benign) causes that being tense for many minutes makes us feel pain or discomfort in some parts of the Body.

3. Are you a victim of psychological rumination often?

Psychological rumination is the tendency for thoughts or images to come to mind that make you feel bad and that resist being “pushed” out of your consciousness, returning again and again or even leading you to immerse yourself in them and to actively turn them around, reflecting on all their implications. In people with anxiety problems, this phenomenon is very common.

4. Do you have trouble sleeping?

Insomnia in any of its forms is one of the most common consequences of an excessively high level of anxiety. This is closely related to psychological rumination: when we are in bed trying to reconcile sleep, it is common for anxiety to "attract" thoughts and ideas to us stressful. And even if we do manage to get to sleep, we are more likely to wake up several times against our will and feel like we haven't had enough rest the next day.

• You may be interested in: "Insomnia: what is its impact on our health"

5. Is your mental alertness affected?

Excessive levels of anxiety, whether in specific crises or continuously (for example, through the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder) lead to cognitive wear and tear. Namely, problems in mental processes related to reasoning, decision-making, memory and attention management, everything related to intellectual capacity.

These negative effects of anxiety problems mainly affect working memory, which is the responsible for allowing us to have several elements at once in our mind and manipulate them to create information new. For example, the figures when adding without the help of paper, and the management of the attention focus (it is more difficult for us to concentrate and not give in to distractions).

Fortunately, once anxiety levels have returned to normal, these cognitive abilities also return to their normal levels.

6. Have you been suffering from digestion problems for a while?

Digestive processes are very sensitive to anxiety, and they are altered by it in a matter of minutes. Taking this into account, it is normal for your stomach to ache from time to time or feel gas accumulation and similar problems (it could be due to something you have eaten). But if it happens to you for several days in a row or almost in a row, anxiety has many ballots of being one of its main causes.

7. Are you more irritable in your relationships with others?

People with a pathological level of anxiety feel that the simple act of managing their emotions and thoughts overwhelm them. And so they experience frustration when they notice that others are an extra source of inconvenience or problems. That is why they tend to have less patience than usual, reacting with greater hostility in situations where it is not justified.

Are you looking for professional psychological assistance?

If you want to start a process of psychological therapy, get in touch with our team of professionals. On Psychological Awakenings We have psychological assistance centers in the main cities of the Community of Madrid, and we also carry out online therapy by video call. We can help you overcome disorders such as anxiety disorders, depression and other types of mood disorders, trauma, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, low self-esteem, and more.

Bibliographic references:

• American Psychiatric Association -APA- (2014). DSM-5. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Madrid: Panamericana.
• Gottschalk, M.G.; Domschke, K. (2017). Genetics of generalized anxiety disorder and related traits. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. 19(2), :159 - 168.
• Magee, J.C. & Teachman, B.A. (2012). Distress and Recurrence of Intrusive Thoughts in Younger and Older Adults. Psychology and Aging, 27 (1): pp. 199 - 210.
• Paul, J.W.; Elizabeth, A.. Phelps, eds. (2009). The Human Amygdala. New York: The Guilford Press.
• Sylvester, C.M., Corbetta, M., Raichle, M.E., Rodebaugh, T., Schlaggar, B.L., Sheline, Y.I., Zorumski, C.F., Lenze, E.J. (2012). Functional network dysfunction in anxiety and anxiety disorders. Trends in Neurosciences. Elsevier.