While we read and hear a lot about depression these days, anxiety is actually far more common, affecting about one in six adults.
A seriously debilitating condition, it often goes hand in hand with low mood, but many sufferers tell me it’s their feelings of constant fear that really blight their lives.
The never-ending sense of dread can be unimaginably hard to manage. It affects people in all sorts of ways, impacting their work, social lives and relationships.
In fact, anxiety is a normal human emotion and has evolved to help us respond quickly and effectively when there is a threat.
If you’re being chased by a lion, for example, it’s good to feel frightened if you want a chance to escape!
Anxiety is a seriously debilitating condition, which often goes hand in hand with low mood, but many sufferers say it’s the feelings of constant fear that really blight their lives
The never-ending sense of dread can affect people in all sorts of ways, impacting their work, social lives and relationships
When you develop an anxiety disorder, however, the feeling isn’t attached to a real threat.
It happens when there’s nothing wrong. It’s as though your brain has become confused and started to see innocuous, everyday things or situations as a threat.
That feeling of worry can bubble up from nowhere.
There’s a middle ground, too. Many of us are plagued by low-level anxiety, while not meeting the criteria for a diagnosis.
Some 75 per cent of people report feeling anxious, and nearly a quarter say it has stopped them attending social events.
A new government and NHS campaign from Every Mind Matters is trying to help people address their symptoms before they develop into a disorder.
The initiative offers advice on how to manage the anxious feelings most of us have from time to time but which can, in certain circumstances, develop into a full-blown mental illness.
We can all benefit from taking proactive steps to improve our mental health. Not only will this reduce the risk of your anxiety snowballing, but it will also help you make the most out of life.
Dr Max shares six simple strategies which can make all the difference, for example, learning breathing and relaxation techniques and taking daily exercise
Just a few, simple strategies can make all the difference. The Every Mind Matters website (nhs.uk/every-mind-matters) has tips on how to beat anxiety, but here are a few of mine to get you going:
- Many people find slow breathing and relaxation techniques help calm them down. First, try focusing on your breathing. Breathe in for three seconds, hold your breath and count to five, then breathe out again for three seconds. Continue for one minute, then reassess how anxious you feel.
You can keep doing this until you notice that your anxiety has lessened. You can also try a number of mindful exercises where you focus on your body and progressively relax.
There are some great apps such as Headspace that provide guided meditations.
- Distraction is also a good tool, especially if your mind feels too cluttered or you are too anxious to try meditation or mindfulness. Calling someone and having a chat about something other than anxiety often helps. Others benefit from ‘craftfulness’ — doing an activity such as knitting or building Lego, so that you are focusing your attention on something outside of yourself.
Tom Daley has spoken about how knitting helped get him through the Olympics. Doodling, drawing or colouring books are other good options.
- We often worry about things that never happen. Think about what’s on your mind and ask yourself if it’s likely to take place.
If you’re feeling anxious because you are putting off getting something done, or because the problem seems too big, try to break it into bite-sized tasks.
If you’re feeling fretful about a piece of work, for example, set yourself the task of just writing the first few lines.
Dr Max says it’s sometimes helpful to write down a list of worries as a way of identifying what’s really making you anxious
- As strange as it sounds, when we’re anxious we often don’t think through what we’re anxious about — we simply have the fear, but don’t get to the root of what’s triggering it.
It’s sometimes helpful to think about what’s really making you anxious. Writing down a list of worries can help you find the real cause.
- Make sure you exercise daily. This helps distract you and put things in focus. Four in ten of us aren’t getting our NHS-recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, yet we know this benefits not just our physical health, but our mental health, too.
Exercise — be it walking or a gym workout — does this by releasing the ‘feel-good’ hormones that boost our mood, while helping to reduce anxiety.
Make sure you also eat good, nutritious food and avoid caffeine as this exacerbates the problem. In the short term, alcohol can often feel like it will relax you, but in the long term, it actually increases anxiety levels.
- If your symptoms continue to trouble you, then the good news is there’s effective treatment to help manage the symptoms. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talking treatment that ‘retrains’ the brain to be less anxious.
You work closely with a therapist to explore your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. People usually need between ten and 16 sessions to get on top of their anxiety.
Your GP can refer you to your local service or, in some areas, you can self-refer.
There’s an epidemic of mental health problems among the young.
Generations who have lived through war are doing better than many who are in thrall to social media on their phones.
When are we going to wake up and see what we’re doing to our children?
Strictly star opens up on cancer shock
Amy Dowden’s breast cancer diagnosis at 32 may prompt other women to get checked. Signs that you should see a doctor are lumps in the breasts; changes to the skin, such as dimpling, scaling, redness or a rash; discharge from the nipple; a lump or swelling in the armpit; or a change to the size or shape of the breast
Strictly dancer Amy Dowden’s diagnosis of breast cancer at just 32 has shocked fans.
If anything good might come out of the dreadful situation poor Amy finds herself in, it’s the fact that other women may be prompted to get any lumps checked out.
When someone in the media has an illness, people inevitably come forward to see us and it saves lives.
My first job in medicine was in breast surgery. I so enjoyed meeting, talking to and caring for the patients.
I was surprised by how breast cancer affects different ages and how indiscriminately it attacks.
I also lost count of the number of times I heard women say they had been worried but had delayed getting help as they didn’t want to bother a doctor, or were too busy. It was heart-breaking.
Other signs that you should get checked as soon as possible are changes to the skin, such as dimpling, scaling, redness or a rash; discharge from the nipple; a lump or swelling in the armpit; or a change to the size or shape of the breast. Never delay.
I was interested to hear that the new anti-obesity wonder drug, Wegovy (also known as Ozempic or semaglutide), has a possible unexpected — and, for some, very welcome — side-effect: it appears to have cured other addictions.
People have reported that they stopped drinking alcohol, smoking, excessively shopping and even biting their nails after taking the drug.
We know the drug has some impact on the reward pathways in the brain, so perhaps that explains this?
It’s thought that it interferes with the feel-good hormone dopamine, thus reducing the ‘buzz’ that addicts get.
A number of my patients who take the drug have told me they’ve gone off alcohol entirely, and it has transformed their lives for this reason alone.
Patrick Strudwick’s podcast White Smoke: America’s Chemsex Killer is available on Audible
DR MAX PRESCRIBES…
MY FAVOURITE PODCAST
JOURNALIST Patrick Strudwick uncovers the secret world behind a Hollywood scandal involving the abuse of homeless, vulnerable, young black men in White Smoke: America’s Chemsex Killer (available on Audible).
He reveals how predators can exploit people, using drugs to lure them in, before raping and destroying them.
It underlines how we need a bigger conversation about drugs and consent.
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