30 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
The Nature of A nx iety
A key aspect of assessing your anxiety is understanding
the nature and experience of your symptoms. “Anxiety” is
often an all- encompassing term that describes a mood state
characterized by fear, apprehension, and avoidance.
However, it’s important that you distinguish between fear
and anxiety so that you can label your experience properly
and guide your behavior accordingly. You may recall that we
already discussed these differences earlier in this chapter,
but it bears repeating so that you can fully understand how
they apply to your life. Again, fear is like an alarm or warning
system for your body. Fear is a present- moment emotional
response that works to facilitate your survival.
If you are walking down the street and you encounter a
tiger, you very likely will develop a fear response that will
motivate you to take action to protect yourself— to fight the
tiger, f lee from it, or freeze to avoid detection. Okay, so most
likely you will never encounter a tiger, but think about the
last time you looked in your rearview mirror and saw red
and blue lights f lashing from a police vehicle. If you are like
most people, you instantly felt a sense of dread (and maybe
even doom!), followed by fairly immediate changes in your
body, such as increased blood pressure and heart rate,
nausea, shallow breathing, or a surge of energy. Fear is what
enables you to detect sources of threat, to be alert and
focused, and to act quickly and decisively.
Anxiety, as we mentioned, is a future- oriented emotional
response in which you anticipate upcoming threats. Anxiety
is characterized by a chronic sense of threat, apprehension
and worry about the future, and bodily tension; anxiety is a
mechanism to help you prepare or cope with upcoming