It’s likely that you’ve ended up in this corner of the internet for many of the same reasons shared by nearly 300 million people in the world — anxiety. There’s some evidence that anxiety has been on the rise in recent decades and I’ve started to question why. The question mainly arose from my own struggles with GAD and my own ways of trying to address it. There are many, many things I hope to talk about, but we’ll start simple.
What is anxiety?
There are many forms of anxiety and people experience them all differently. I won’t focus on the clinical definition of anxiety, because we all know what it should be on paper, but anxiety isn’t always apparent because we don’t always know what anxiety feels like.
“I have a list of possible problems in my head. If all the real problems are solved, I turn another one into a problem so that I can worry about it. These are constant facts of life. It is not increasing. It has always been like this.”
— Anon
“The worst part is not being able to focus — anxiety induces a thick brain fog, making it really difficult to concentrate at work. Not being able to concentrate at work, in turn, makes me feel anxious about other people’s perception of my performance and feeds the cycle.”
— Anon
Sounds familiar? Often we do this and don’t realize it until we’re so deep into the cycle that it’s difficult to climb out of the hole we dug for ourselves. In summary, anxiety can be excessive worry, overthinking, rumination and panic about problems both actual and perceived.
Anxiety in the Modern World
What is it about the modern world that causes a rise in anxiety and is this anxiety any different than that of the past? Or, perhaps we are simply more cognizant of the issue and it’s more socially acceptable to discuss mental illness and the stigma that it sometimes (unfortunately) carries?
There are many different perspectives on the issue and it could be talked about at length and in this blog we’ll explore some of the reasons that I believe could be causing anxiety for us today.
Solutions and fixes
The truth is, I won’t pretend to know the fixes, for anxiety is complex and evolving and one instance may not always be the same as the next. The goal of this blog is to discuss what I’ve tried, what worked and what didn’t work. Ultimately, it’s all about my experiences, progress and setbacks. If someone finds this helpful, useful or relatable, then I’ll enjoy it immensely.