Anxiety and Phobias Tyldesley

Stress and anxiety have been with us since the beginning of mankind and with the increase in pressure from modern society, more and more people are suffering either the psychological or physical aspects of stress. Approximately 1 in 10 of the population suffers from anxiety states and a large number of this group will suffer from phobias (irrational fears) as well. Burn out syndromes are very common in the work situation, where the person feels apathetic and disinterested in their job and virtually become phobic about attending the work place. It is important to achieve a balance between too much and too little stress in our lives and people in high stress jobs, are just as vulnerable as people who are underperforming and are bored with their routine existence. 

Causes

Some degree of stress is important in our everyday lives to help to motivate us and we cannot live without this. Man is an animal, and as animals, we respond to stress with the "flight or fight syndrome”. This produces adrenaline so that we can flee or fight our aggressors. 

However, in modern day society, we are unable to do this, so that the adrenaline gets turned on ourselves, producing anxiety symptoms. Obviously some of us have long standing anxious personalities which can be traced back to early childhood and this group of people are more prone to developing anxiety states than the general population. However, everybody can develop anxiety if they are placed under sufficient stress.

Certain life events have been shown very clearly to relate to our performance and anxiety symptoms. Any change in our lives can be anxiety provoking. Grief is a common cause for anxiety where there is loss either through bereavement, divorce, loss of job, loss of financial status, change of house or our children leaving home. All of these life events produce a change in our life pattern and depending on the flexibility of our personality, we cope with them in different ways...

Profile of the Author: This article is written by Dr Adrian Winbow , Consultant Psychiatrist, Harley St, London.

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