Anxiety

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 Against all better judgment, I tend to worry about things. What if something happens to threaten my professional career? What if I’m not making the most of my time? What if I or my loved ones encounter some unforseen health problem? I could choose any of a host of things to run over with in my mind, and I often do.  But how far does this have to go until it can be defined as anxiety?

The DSM-5 (Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) defines this set of related symptoms as including "disorders that share features of excessive fear and anxiety and related behavioral disorders.  Fear is the emotional response to real or perceived imminent threat, whereas anxiety is anticipation of future threat."  It goes on to say that "anxiety disorders differ from developmentally normative fear or anxiety by being excessive or persisting beyond developmentally appropriate periods."   This goes back to a basic truth that I had learned at John Brown University:  if it doesn't get in the way of your normal functioning, then it's not a symptom.

Some common symptoms relating to anxiety that you might notice in yourself can include:

• when around other people, you fear that you are going to do something that other people around you are going to judge you for doing
• you get overly focused on medical problems - even if your doctor has recently given you a clean bill of health
• you actively avoid situations that may make you anxious
• you find it hard to control the worry and end up "worrying about worrying"
• you have physiological symptoms such as heart palpitations, tremors, feeling like you're being smothered, nausea or abdominal stress, chest pain or discomfort, etc., after your doctor has given you a clean bill of health (i.e. what the layman would call "an anxiety attack")

Dr. Aaron Beck is quite a rock star in the world of psychotherapy as he helped to found the school of thought in these circles known today as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  Here is a copy of the Beck Anxiety Inventory that I found with a Google search which might help you to gauge these kinds of symptoms in yourself.  Give it a go!  Unlike a lot of the tests you find on the internet for different things, Beck's inventories are based in science.