Coping With Anxiety - written by Zinn Jeremiah

Though it's sometimes referred to as a fleeting condition, the specific term anxiety refers to a lingering condition. It's certainly true that a person can be temporarily anxious about some upcoming event or other, but anxiety can and does persist over an extensive period of time. Anxiety as a chronic disorder in fact is exceptionally common, trailing only depression among persistent psychological problems.

Anxiety is actually a broad term that can potentially describe a series of conditions. There is certainly overlap between anxious conditions in terms of symptoms and even treatment. Essentially, anxiety as a chronic condition involves being in an agitated state. For some anxious conditions, this agitation is situation specific; for other anxious conditions, generalized anxiety in specific, a sense of agitation seems to be nearly constant.

Everyone has felt high levels of agitation at some point in their lives. It's an uncomfortable way of being, to say the least. The thought of being in a constant state of agitation can provide insight into how people with anxious conditions go through their lives. As a means of avoiding the pain and discomfort chronic anxiety brings, people come up with different means of coping. Self-medication is a common response in a person with an anxious condition. Self-medicating in this way can involve forms of sedation through intaking drugs or alcohol.

A rather common form of self-medicating an anxious condition, or any other emotional disturbance for that matter, is eating. Certain types of foods especially seem to be consumed during anxious states. Eating foods for emotional relief is often referred to as comfort eating, and the foods under such circumstances are often fattening, sweet, or both. The logic behind consuming high sugar, high calorie foods during anxiety or other distress is likely the immediate sense of physical satisfaction these foods provide. The obvious drawback to this form of coping is that these comfort foods, though the may temporarily bring satisfaction, cause bodily damage if consumed on a consistent basis.

Avoidance is another not uncommon strategy for coping with anxiety. In essence, people avoid those situations that cause an anxious response. When the anxiety-causing stimulus is quite common or very broad, however, avoidance as a coping method can become especially problematic, and can alter the way a person goes through life in a dramatic way. Thankfully there are effective ways for overcoming anxiety, permanently so, that are not disruptive or harmful. Because anxiety is a quite common condition, effective and safe treatment options are generally not difficult to find.