Anxiety Panic And Stress
Anxiety is a physiological state that is caused by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). SNS is active on the sympathetic tone base level and stressful situations can increase it’s activity. A person will experience a reaction to either ’fight or flight’, the situation. Anxiety doesn’t need an outside influence to occur. Anxiety is often based on irrational or illogical fears.
Panic is related to the “fight or flight” mechanism. Panic is generated from the sympathetic nervous system much like anxiety however, it is initiated by external situations. Panic in general is a sudden fear that can dominate or replace our thinking. This is a stronger defense response the body has in place to help protect itself from a perceivably life threatening or harmful situation. Panic occurs when a person is already in an anxiety state of being and they begin thinking more about it.
Stress, on the other hand, is a psychosocial reaction by the body. Stress is often the result of the way a person is influenced by external events or situations . It can develop based on a person’s expectations, assumptions and ideas. All these type of assumptions, ideas and expectations are referred to as: ’social constructivism’; and it may appear to be natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society.
Panic and stress both play important roles in the natural survival instinct. The body defense devices will engage every time the feeling of the need to ’fight or flight’, kicks in. This is the human bodies way of preparing for a potential life threatening or dangerous situation.
However, anxiety will not only occur when a person is fearful or has a defensive mindset regarding a situation. One way you can help to alleviate some anxiety would be to remove yourself from the immediate environment, however, many people will face similar situations again and the feelings brought on by an anxiety disorder will often come back. This encourages us to escape the situation again instead of working through the anxiety.
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