Q:I am having trouble understanding anxiety. I still do not know how to tell the difference between worry and anxiety. I worry a lot. Does that mean that I am also anxious?
A:Anxiety is worrying about something that might happen sometime in the future. People who are anxious do not spend much time thinking about the here and now. They spend more time thinking about everything that might go wrong sometime next week, next month or next year.
They wonder if they will go bankrupt and end up on social assistance, get a divorce and be lonely for the rest of their lives or become social outcasts with no support from family or friends.
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All of us, regardless of age, need to have goals. That is not only natural, but it is psychologically healthy. When our goals turn into obsessions, commanding too much attention from our waking thoughts, they become problems.
If you get anxious and scare yourself that the bank is going to foreclose on your loan and take away your truck, you may not see a hazard on the road when you are driving.
If you do not become anxious, you can problem solve better. You might decide to sell your truck and pick up something cheaper or pick up another job to pay your debt.
Anxiety is relatively easy to recognize. It shows up in sleep problems, causing nights of insomnia.
It sometimes makes its way into the kitchen where you either eat too much, gorging on everything in sight, or you cannot eat anything.
It’s sometimes found in headaches, backaches or unusual muscle or tendon tics. It can give you nightmares, cause you to lose your temper with your loved ones and erode your self confidence.
You can avoid anxiety by living in the present, relaxing or by getting involved in a project.
Failing that, you might ask your physician to prescribe something that will help you.
Once you reduce your anxiety, you will find yourself fixing those problems that can be fixed, ignoring those that cannot, and trusting that no matter how bad things get, you will always enjoy the good things in life.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer. com.
