Having anxiety can be a very unpleasant experience and can severely restrict how we live our day to day life. So, trying to understand the causes of our anxiety is quite understandable. My own experience of suffering with extreme anxiety completely imprisoned me and prevented me from living a normal life for over 2 years. My own journey of recovery started by identifying my own experiences in my life and in my childhood that had created this anxiety. Each experience, emotional pain, distressing memory, trauma and stress-producing situation was then healed and my extreme anxiety disappeared. I am now using that whole experience of working through all my own issues to help other people overcome their anxiety. I am proof it can be done.
Some causes of anxiety could be
- Childhood experiences
- Later life Experiences
- Everyday life and habits
- Patterns or thinking styles
- Physical health problems
- Substance abuse/diet
- Genetics
Childhood Experiences
Our childhood is where we lay down the foundations of our life in terms of what we believe and how we respond to life’s challenges. The first 7 years is a pivotal time in our development. Feeling loved, valued, respected and safe are all we need to build up the resilience and self-esteem for our later life. We feel complete and know our boundaries.
For many this is not the case and our childhoods were traumatic, and distressing at times. We may have lost a parent or someone we loved, lived in a hostile environment at home, or been bullied at school. Children who grow up repeatedly exposed to distressing and traumatic events may be vulnerable later in life and develop anxiety. Our childhood is where many of the unconscious triggers to today’s problems lie and working through our experiences as I did can dramatically change our life.
Later life experiences
Traumatic or distressing experiences can happen to us as adults. For example, we can lose a job, suffer a burglary, have a car accident and this can create anxiety, especially if our life is stressful from everyday events. We can see this as the straw that broke the camel’s back scenario and we suffer anxiety.
Everyday life and habits
Another way our resilience to life’s events gets broken down is everyday life and habits such as exhaustion or stress, long working hours, pressure at home, work or the course you are studying. This constant stress erodes our resilience to a point where anxiety becomes our body’s response.
Patterns or thinking styles
Anxiety will develop from peoples thinking styles. For example, if someone develops a thinking style that always expects the worst-case scenario this will keep that person on guard all the time. They believe that thinking about all the things that could go wrong, they will be better prepared to cope if it happens. The problem with this is that person is on red-alert unable to switch off and relax. Self-sabotaging could also be a pattern someone has and could be fuelling their anxiety and maybe confirming some deep held belief about themselves. Research has shown that people with certain personality types are more likely to suffer with anxiety. Perfectionists are prone to develop anxiety as their need to be perfect is stress producing. Another constant red-alert status situation.
Physical health problems
Chronic physical illness or the impact of treatment can contribute to anxiety. A sudden change of circumstances such as a lack of mobility can create anxiety. A long term physical health problem or the ongoing experience of chronic pain makes us more vulnerable to experiencing anxiety and depression.
Similarly, if you are experiencing mental-health problems such as depression, it is common to suffer anxiety as well. My own experience was of suffering both at the same time.
Substance abuse/diet
If someone is taking prescription medication or street drugs including alcohol this will affect mental health and anxiety will be a side effect.
Diet also could affect mental health. Drinking caffeine, eating lots of sugar, and poor diets generally can contribute to having symptoms of anxiety.
Genetics
Genetics may also be involved in making people more susceptible to being anxious. Our DNA can carry traumatic experiences from our ancestors in its coding.
In my next post I will look at the symptoms of anxiety which are amazingly numerous.
So, if I can help you in anyway with your anxiety please take the opportunity of a free 30 min consultation either person to person at a suitable location or via skype or telephone where we can discuss in confidence how I can help or assist you.
Roy Gough
Springtree Therapies
www. springtreetherpies.co.uk
Tel 07817979493
Skype edward.roy.gough