What is anxiety?

What is anxiety?

It is often called a lot of different things like worry, fear, or shyness, for example.

What happens when you worry?

1) You may experience body sensations like an upset stomach, a head ache, a pounding heart and/or shallow breathing.

2) Your thinking and self talk might change. You might assume bad things will happen to you or you might imagine things will be much worse off than they will be.

3) Feelings of embarrassment, worry, fear or sadness might come up.

4) Your behaviours might change. Perhaps you lose your temper, or you avoid certain situations, looking to others for reassurance or have an outburst of emotion.

Anxiety isn't bad, it is a natural and normal response that can be helpful to us. For example, if we have some anxiousness because we have an upcoming test, we may react by studying for the test. Sometimes, however, our anxiousness is too overhelming. In these cases, there are ways that we can learn to manage it. The course below will teach you more about what anxiety is, how to develop helpful thinking patterns, and how to relax and self-regulate so that we can maintain an healthy anxiety level.