Anxiety can be treated
Do you suffer from anxiety? If so, you are not alone. Anxiety is the most prevalent of all psychological disorders, with over 25% of the population suffering from anxiety at some point in their lives. Furthermore, having anxiety can lead to depression. In most people who suffer from both anxiety and depression, the anxiety disorder preceded the onset of depression rather than following it.
Anxiety can take a variety of forms, but its main consequence is to restrict and constrain your willingness to fully engage in activities that bring pleasure and meaning into your life. Anxiety tells us to avoid doing things, to hide inside an increasingly constrained “comfort zone,” and to see uncertainty as intolerable and dangerous.
Left to its own devices, anxiety does not usually go away on its own. Instead, it tends to get worse over time because its main processes — avoidance and escape — act like gasoline poured on a fire. The more people refrain from engaging in activities that evoke anxious apprehension or unpleasant emotions, the more scary those activities become. As a result, life gets smaller and smaller, and more and more fear-filled.
Luckily, anxiety is highly treatable. People can learn to change the ways they think and act in the face of anxiety.
