When you have anxiety, many people will try to advise you. Their intentions are good, but oftentimes, it doesn’t make their advice helpful, which makes you more stressed.
To say that anxiety starts from your mind is not necessarily wrong. It is a psychological issue, after all. Consequently, its treatment involves psychotherapy (CBT) and anti-anxiety medications (usually Alprazolam), which are readily available at Medambien.
Is anxiety just in your head?
No, it’s not. However, the more we understand anxiety, the more we realize that it is a disease that needs to be treated just like any other disease. Although anxiety starts from the mind, and a significant part of its symptoms are mental.
Yet, this mental stress can affect the body, which leads to the development of certain physical signs.
Getting rid of anxiety is not as easy as saying, “you won’t have it if you don’t think about it”. Neither can it resolve on its own, nor are its symptoms limited to your head. So to say that anxiety is all in your head is mainly inaccurate.
People oversimplify the issue and fail to understand that physical factors contribute to an anxiety disorder.
These are as follows:
The endocrine system: hormones
Hormones in your body affect your anxiety levels significantly. For instance, a lot of hormonal changes occur when you undergo puberty.
The same is the case when women go through menopause. During these phases, girls, boys, and women experience more anxiety and depression than those who haven’t reached or passed these stages.
Additionally, unhealthy lifestyle habits such as sleeping late at night, long blue light exposure, eating junk food, and lack of exercise can cause hormone imbalance in the body.
Moreover, several health conditions like vitamin deficiency, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and certain infections can disrupt your hormone levels. It leads to high cortisol concentration (the hormone responsible for stress), ultimately leading to anxiety.
The nervous system: neurotransmitters
Another important source of anxiety is neurotransmitters.
Neurotransmitters are chemicals produced by the brain and released into the bloodstream. They are responsible for sending and receiving messages between the central nervous system and the rest of the body.
These chemicals also process information in the brain. They are present in specific amounts, and any form of change in their levels can interfere with regular brain activity. Stress can alter the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, which usually leads to anxiety.
The effects of these altered levels are not just mental but physical as well. Disruption of the working of neurotransmitters can cause health problems, including altered perception, indigestion, headaches and other body pains, and hormone imbalance.
It’s because of these brain chemicals that anxiety is self-sustaining and hard to control.
Physical health problems
Health illnesses can also cause anxiety. It is considered a symptom of several diseases, just like any other symptom.
Therefore, anxiety is not just in your head but a properly documented symptom of health problems like obesity, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), diabetes, heart disease, thyroid issues, and respiratory disorders.
Moreover, this pathway can reverse as well, i.e., prolonged anxiety may cause specific physical health issues like heart problems, eating disorders, substance abuse, and depression. This happens due to high levels of stress and the way that anxiety impacts nutrition in your body.
When people say that anxiety is in your head, they’re implying that every symptom is the result of your thoughts.
Although most of the symptoms of anxiety are mental, there is a significant number of physical symptoms as well. So to say that everything about anxiety is limited to the brain is a huge oversimplification of the matter.
Anxiety symptoms are not made up!
When you’re anxious, your body’s response to the stress can be seen in the form of a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, sweating, numb hands and feet, shivering, and headaches. Anxiety causes real changes in your body, which in turn may worsen your anxiety.
So to say that you can cure anxiety by simply not thinking about it is irresponsible and inaccurate.
Furthermore, anxiety can affect your behavior and emotional stability. When you’re anxious, it triggers your fight-or-flight response. This leads to increased adrenaline levels, which is crucial in the face of danger.
However, you’re not in danger, all it does is make you stressed, jittery, and restless.
People with anxiety disorders tend to relieve this restlessness in some way.
While some ways are harmless and beneficial even, others are harmful with lasting side effects, like an addiction. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), nearly 20% of Americans with an anxiety disorder are addicted to alcohol or drugs.
People with anxiety or mood disorders use substances to “loosen up”, which may eventually turn into abuse. They do so without acknowledging the fact that substance abuse, in turn, causes depression and anxiety or worsens their symptoms.
All these changes occur because anxiety disorder is a lot more than just a state of mind. Though it starts with your thoughts, still, it can cause serious harm to your physical health.
The bottom line
Anxiety that you may often feel can be irrational, and a significant part of it is undoubtedly related to the mind.
However, the idea that anxiety symptoms are all in your head is absolutely incorrect. Anxiety is deemed a proper illness with real signs and symptoms. These symptoms can be cured with appropriate therapy and treatment.
Over time, the more we learn about mental disorders, anxiety specifically, the better our understanding gets about the fact that anxiety is not just another name for emotional immaturity; rather, it is a disease of the mind that affects the body as well.