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When Being Anxious Is a Strength
In my previous post, we examined the difference between unhelpful and helpful levels of anxiety. I have also discussed, at length, the factors which contribute to anxiety disorders – biology, more specifically genetics, being a major contributor. You read that right, being an anxious person is an inherited trait. What this means is that your nervous system may be more easily activated due to genetics. Here is something we have yet to discuss; the fact that being an anxious pe
Normal Versus Pathological Anxiety: What Is the Difference?
Here’s the beef, anxiety is not inherently a problematic emotion. Quite the contrary, anxiety can actually be helpful in life, and it appears it was “designed” to be so from an evolutionary perspective. Let’s start by a discussion on what anxiety is and how it affects the body. Anxiety is differentiated from fear, in that fear is anxiety in the moment. For example, when you are in the woods and you see a bear, your fight or flight system kicks into gear and your heart starts
Anxiety is a BODY Disorder - Not a Psychological Disorder
Okay, so it’s simple. The structure of our health system is what actually separates the body from the brain/mind (the brain is the hardware, the mind is the software). The two are not actually separate. I am a strong advocate of referring to “mental health” as “health” and providing cross training in disciplines to make them work together more effectively. Why? Because they are part of the same system! Let’s discuss some examples to show the “whole” of it all. What I refer to
Why Social Anxiety is a Brain AND Body Problem
Western culture likes to place things into categories in order to facilitate understanding. At times, these categories can create additional problems, such as when we try to separate the brain and the body. When we speak about “mental healthcare” and “physical healthcare” (usually just termed “healthcare” for the latter) we talk as if our heads are not even connected to our bodies. The truth is we cannot have one without the other. The specialization of our professionals (e.g
