What is anxiety?

Anxiety is basically a defensive mechanism. It is a warning system in situations considered threatening. It is a universal mechanism, occurs in all people, is normal, adaptive, improves performance and ability to anticipate and respond. The function of anxiety is to mobilize the organism, keep it alert and willing to intervene in the face of risks and threats, so that its consequences do not occur or are minimized. Anxiety, then, pushes us to take the appropriate measures (flee, attack, neutralize, face, adapt, etc.), depending on the case and the nature of the risk or danger. The danger is given by the obstruction of any project or desire important to us, or by the degradation of status or achievements already achieved. The human being wants what he does not have,

The anxiety then, as an adaptive mechanism, is good, functional, normal and does not represent any health problem.

However, in some cases, this mechanism works in an altered way, that is, it produces health problems and, instead of helping us, it disables us. What factors can influence that a normal, healthy and adaptive mechanism ceases to be?

Predispositional factors

Biological factors, some of them genetic

Personality factors Patterns of stress coping. Lifestyle

Environmental factors. Learning. Contexts and social supports

Activating or triggering factors

Situations or events that are experienced as overflowing our resources

Vital events with serious consequences or that require significant adaptive efforts.

Obstacles to achieve or that limit our ability to achieve or maintain them

Consumption of stimulants or other drugs

Maintenance factors, linked to the management of one's anxiety

The "fear of fear"

The loss of conditions or faculties, due to the anxiety itself, that make it difficult to face the problems

Attempted solutions that are counterproductive

The problematization of initially non-conflictive areas, as a consequence of one's anxiety

Inadequate or erroneous confrontation of the problems originating anxiety.

The establishment of phobic mechanisms

Anxiety problems occur, usually, by a combination of some of these factors over a period of time.

Causes of anxiety: origin and maintenance

Introduction

Man, as a living being, develops in constant interaction with the environment. The medium is a source of opportunities for the satisfaction of their needs and interests, but also of risks and threats. In essence, the relation of the individual with the environment consists in procuring and conserving the former, and in combating, avoiding, minimizing or counteracting the latter. Evolution has been giving the species complex mechanisms to preserve and optimize adaptation to different environments and circumstances. Among them, warning and defense systems have reached special relevance and development. The system we call anxiety fulfills these functions.

Anxiety is an alert system of the organism in situations considered threatening, that is, situations that affect us and in which we have something to gain or lose. The concept of anxiety is therefore closely linked to the perception of threat and the disposition of responses to it. The function of anxiety is to warn and activate the organism, to mobilize it, in the face of situations of certain or probable risk, chimerical or real, so that it can overcome them. Depending on the nature of the threats, or adversities, the anxiety will prepare us:

to fight, face or attack the possible danger or problem;

to escape from the possible danger or threat;

to avoid aversive or feared situations;

to activate submission behaviors that neutralize hostile behaviors of others -in fears of a social nature-;

to seek support, elements of security and protection;

to equip ourselves with the tools or knowledge that allow us to avoid risks and / or access our objectives.

Anxiety involves three types of aspects or components

Cognitive : threatening anticipations, risk assessments, negative automatic thoughts, importunate images, etc.

Physiological : activation of various nerve centers, particularly the autonomic nervous system, which involves vascular, respiratory changes, etc.

Motors and behavior : motor inhibition or overactivation, defensive behavior, security search, submission, avoidance, aggressiveness, etc.

Each of these components can act with some independence. Anxiety can be triggered, both by external or situational stimuli, and by internal stimuli to the subject, such as thoughts, sensations, images. The type of stimulus capable of evoking the anxiety response will be determined to a large extent by the characteristics of the person, and by their circumstance.

It is therefore a mechanism facilitating our relationship with the environment, and intended to preserve the interests of the individual and the species. Many of the things that are going well are due, in part, to the proper functioning of this system: we avoid dangerous activities or places, we try not to be late for work, we face different conflicts, we prepare for an exam or a meeting, we look for support to solve a problem, minimize some setbacks or look for ways to assume them and reformulate them.

In fact, to perform properly, depending on the demands and options of the environment, on the one hand, and our possibilities and interests, on the other, it is necessary a certain state of alert, minimal psychological and physiological activation. Otherwise we would be slow, inattentive, with little capacity for anticipation and response, which could lead to some damage or resignation.

When the anxiety is proportional and manifests itself within limits, there are no symptomatic manifestations -the psychophysiological changes are not enough to overcome the sensory thresholds of the pain receptors, the pressure, the temperature-, or they are minor, except at some point punctual and limited that can be high. These changes in the physiological processes are not only normal, but are functional: they will prepare an organism to emit the pertinent actions in relation to the characterization of the reality that it faces or could face.

Many researchers have studied the relationship between the level of psychophysiological activation of the organism and the ability of the individual to function efficiently. In general, it is considered that the best performance is achieved with average levels of activation.

When it exceeds certain limits, anxiety becomes a health problem, impedes well-being, and interferes remarkably in social, work, or intellectual activities. You can limit freedom of movement and personal choices. In these cases we are not dealing with a simple nervous problem , but with an alteration.

The severity of anxiety disorders is basically measured by two parameters: the suffering and the incapacitation that they generate, being more serious those

they cause more health problems, and more intense, and imply greater limitations for those who suffer them.

Factors involved in the origin and maintenance of anxiety as a disorder

In the appearance and maintenance of anxiety as a disorder, three major groups of factors influence: predisposition factors, activating factors, and maintenance factors.

Predispositional factors : With this term we refer to biological and constitutional variables, hereditary or not, which make it more likely that an individual develops anxiety disorders if exposed to situations capable of activating it. Within this group of factors we could also consider some referred to the personality, dependent on the history of the individual, conditioned by biology and learning. These predisposition factors are not anxiety or condemn suffering. They are factors of vulnerability. In other words, there are people who have a more sensitive alert system, on the one hand, and more complex to deactivate once fired, on the other. In a sense, they are people who regularly meet in a kind of pre-alert that conditions its disposition towards the environment -external or internal-, the warning and the registration of certain events, and the prefiguration of a type of defensive-responses as more probable.

Some of these predispositional factors are still unknown, although their existence is presumed. Others are known, but for a good number of them, especially the genetic origin, specific therapeutics have not yet been developed. Yes, there are treatments for the correction of some of the effects caused by these factors and expressed in neurotransmission systems, which would allow the reduction of their influence, in some cases very important, the consequent improvement, and the reduction of vulnerability.

Activating factors:With this expression we refer to those events, situations or circumstances that are capable of activating the warning system, the preparation to respond to them and the response itself. We have previously indicated that anxiety is fundamentally linked to the perception of threat, therefore, essentially, the factors that trigger anxiety are those that are related to the threat and its nature. We have also indicated that the perception of risk, that is to say what is considered threatening, depends fundamentally on a process of evaluation, conscious or automatic, determined by the assessment of what happens and how it affects us, on the one hand; and what can we do about it, on the other. Basically, in general terms, anxiety comes from two major types of problems. First,status . Thus, we would perceive the loss of health or work as threatening.

Also in this group of factors are other factors that induce an over-stimulation / over-activation of the organism: we can mention especially the stress and the consumption of substances, particularly the stimulants.

Maintenance factors : This group of factors mainly affect those cases in which the original problems of anxiety are not resolved satisfactorily, or when anxiety reaches limits of disorder. Once anxiety manifests itself as a problem, it has a certain chance of increasing. At the moment when anxiety appears, due to the activating factors , aided more or less by predisposition factorsIf it is excessive and sustained, it causes the appearance of health problems. These problems, which previously did not exist, are due to anxiety, but, in turn, multiply it. Health is a good value in itself. If it is problematized, for any reason including the anxiety itself, it generates an increase in the state of alertness and helplessness.

It must also be considered that health is a necessary condition for the realization of other plans that may suffer from the new state of the organism, which would lead to the appearance of new problems, different from those that originally caused the anxiety, but that contribute to your feedback.

The actions linked to anxiety as an alarm mechanism - note this voice: To the weapon !! -, because of its adaptive value and survival, are hierarchically prioritized over other actions, so that these last attentional, cognitive resources are withdrawn and behavioral in order to respond satisfactorily to the emergency. It has its logic that, if for example, a fire is declared, the management of other action programs in progress - reading, making a report, participating in a meeting, eating - take a back seat. If the anxiety is punctual, the provisional paralysis of these programs, or their follow-up at a minimum, does not represent great inconveniences; but if the state of alarm is prolonged in time it severely affects its development and, in the end, it would have such consequences for individuals that they would become new sources of anxiety.

Finally, within the maintenance factors, we must mention the counterproductive coping strategies: tried, failed solutions that aim to regulate anxiety, its motives or its effects, not only do not achieve it, but contribute to its increase and perpetuation. These procedures are varied and affect both control of symptoms, as well as thoughts, environment and behavior. To give an example that illustrates what we are referring to, it is worth mentioning hyperventilation. Some people, with the sensation of shortness of breath and lack of air, respond with a rapid, superficial, and intense breathing, the consequence of which is an abrupt fall of the levels of carbon dioxide, which in turn generates an increase of the suffocation, of the heat, heart rate, dizziness, anthill, etc,