Stress vs Anxiety

There is an outbreak of people falsely claiming that they have anxiety when all they are is a little stressed out. This does nothing but discredit the people who actually have anxiety. Sometimes, you start to get overwhelmed by work, or maybe you’re anxious about a girl, or it could be as awful as worrying about a loved one, but in the end, that’s still not anxiety. Anxiety is a medical condition that affects people all around the world, fun fact- it’s actually the most common illness. It is commonly known as excessive worrying but it’s so much more. Anxiety causes students to be unable to do work sufficiently, parents to be overprotective of their children, humans in general to fear almost anything. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines anxiety as “an emotion characterised by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.”

Symptoms of Anxiety:

• First of all, of course, Excessive worrying. This makes you worry about everything.  Whether or not you packed your lunch correctly, is your homework ever good enough, or what did she mean by “Hi”.
• 2. You may be lacking sleep. Anxiety may keep your head running causing you to be unable to shut down.
• 3. Anxiety can be shown through phobias. This could be a fear through rational things or irrational things like butterflies. You may even be afraid of crowds.
• 4. It could be stress on the body. We always will need a way to relieve pain. This means things like chronic indigestion where it’s basically like having anxiety in the stomach or muscle tension.
• 5. Self-conscious. Teenagers have a rep for trying to appear perfect to their peers but add that with a little anxiety and it gets worse. This is one of the leading causes of anorexia.
• 6. The most expressive way is shown through panic attacks. It’s like a rush of stress, fear, doubt, and headaches all at once.
• 7. OCD. You probably know what this means. Trying to make sure is seemingly perfect and clean.

Help to cope with anxiety:

• You could go to therapy. Therapy is sought out by many who suffer from anxiety and it is really helpful due to the level of professionalism and experience.
• Find help from friends. Your friends are there for you.
• Try meditating. Meditation is the best way to find peace in the state of mind.
• Exercising. You keep fit and you feel better about yourself.
• Side note: What I do is write a list of what I worry most about and then I try to find a solution for them.
• Find a hobby. Pick an instrument, a sort, go to the gym, do whatever makes you happy.
• Get away from the stress. Relax once in a while. Travel. Just avoid the drama.
• Spread awareness

Obviously, anxiety is a major problem. It is the most common mental illness in the world. The best thing we can do is help spread awareness for people to take it as a more serious matter. Schools need to take action on making sure they won’t stress out their students much more than they already are. Parents need to stop blaming their children for their unwanted issues and help them instead. And society needs to stop trying to make everyone perfect.