What It Means to Have Anxious Feelings
What is interesting to know is that experiencing some amount of anxiety means that you are human. Richard Zinbarg, Ph.D., professor and psychology department chair at Northwestern University, tells SELF “Just about all of us have some levels of anxiety and worry,”
An anxious feeling occurs when you feel apprehensive about something stressful, or a good thing, like a wedding or the speech you have to give in front of a large audience. It is only a sign that your inherent survival mechanism is working as expected. “Some anxiety is helpful and necessary to motivate us to act; for example, if you need to start an assignment that is due tomorrow or if you are in the woods and see a bear,” Holly Valerio, M.D., clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety in the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, tells SELF.
Your amygdala [1] appears to kick-start this survival mechanism, better known as your fight-or-flight response. This tiny region in your brain receives information about the world around you. If it interprets a threat, it sets off a reaction that pings your autonomic nervous system (ANS) and communicates that you may need to engage in combat or flee. Your ANS, which governs automatic processes like your heartbeat and breathing rate, prepares for action. This is why being in an anxiety-provoking situation can give you a racing heartbeat, quicker breathing, sweaty palms, the whole nine.