Anxiety can hurt. It can be emotionally painful, and it can be physically agonizing, too--so much so that physical symptoms of anxiety frequently send people to their doctor's office or hospital emergency department (ED). Almost 1.25 million people visited an ED for physical symptoms of anxiety annually between 2009 and 20111. It's important to seek medical help to rule out serious and potentially life-threatening conditions; however, it's frustrating to be discharged with a shrug and casual statement that "it's just anxiety." Read on to learn more about anxiety's physical symptoms and how to feel better when anxiety hurts. 

Have you ever second-guessed yourself, questioning your words or actions? Many people place second-guessing at or near the top of their list of agonizing effects of anxiety. At best, it can knock down your sense of inner peace and happiness a notch or two. At worst, anxiously second-guessing our choices can cause us to berate ourselves relentlessly, unnecessarily assume blame, question whether we're good enough, and begin to pull away from a connected, active lifestyle. We don't have to let anxiety have this life-limiting and frustrating effect on us. Stop second-guessing and become self-assured in what you say and do.

The myth of holiday suicide is one of the most stubborn myths related to mental illness. Because it’s now officially the holiday season, I want to take this opportunity to do my part to bust the most stubborn myth. Most of you have probably heard there is a significant increase in suicides during the holiday season; however, as the title of this post suggests, this is a myth. Suicide rates are actually lower than average during the holidays, with their peaks occurring in the spring and fall. While most people probably don’t think much of the myth, dismissing it as another old wives tale tenaciously hanging on to relevance, I’m much more disturbed by it, and feel the holiday suicide myth needs to be addressed with some degree of urgency.

Holidays can be hard when you are living with anxiety and loneliness. Holidays can be stressful for anyone, but when you experience any type of anxiety, they're more difficult. Then, when you layer a sense of loneliness and isolation on top of anxiety, holidays can be quite upsetting. Anxiety can make you feel lonelier on a special day, and loneliness can exacerbate anxiety. Understanding what's going on with these misery-causing experiences can help you change your holidays for the better. 

Anxiety in relationships can cause problems because it’s very easy to take out your anxiety on others. Consider this hypothetical: you’re anxious about something – the cause isn’t important, and perhaps there is no cause. Regardless, it’s to the point where it’s actively affecting your day. Someone asks you a harmless question – for whatever reason, it sets you off and you snap at them. Clearly, anxiety in relationships is detrimental to you and those you care about, and if it happens, steps should be taken to prevent it.

"Anxiety says everything is my fault." This is a common lament and source of great stress for people living with anxiety. Believing that you're to blame for everything bad that happens--big or small--to people you care about is an effect of anxiety that is often overlooked.This form of self-blame is closely associated with depression. The feeling that "everything is my fault" is also very much part of anxiety. Understanding the relationship between anxiety and self-blame can help you recognize it and begin to separate yourself from the erroneous belief that it's all your fault. 

Anxiety and laziness seem unseemly because social pressure tells us it’s not okay to be lazy -- or anxious. We tend to value productivity and activity – if we don’t get as much out of the day as we can, we can be looked down upon. However, anxiety and laziness can go together, and it's okay to be lazy when you're anxious.

What is anxiety? Odd as it may seem, that is a common, and quite legitimate, question. People who live with anxiety typically understand that they are experiencing it. Anxiety feels stressful, crushing, stifling, shocking, painful, and incredibly difficult. People typically  know when anxiety is interfering in their lives. But what, exactly, is anxiety? How is it experienced? Is anxiety a thought? Is it an emotion? Is it a behavior? The more you know what anxiety is and about your own unique experience with it, the better equipped you'll be to use the right strategies to move past it. 

You can understand mental illness more fully by reading great literature. Regular readers of this blog may have seen the video where I examined a poem by William Wordsworth and applied its wisdom to living with anxiety. I'm a former English major, and I firmly believe literature to be one of the most valuable tools we can use to come to terms with the challenges of life, mental illness included. Because this may seem foreign to many readers, I want to use this time to argue why you can understand mental illness better by reading literature.

Anxiety zaps self-confidence. When it knocks out our belief in ourselves, anxiety often takes with it our sense of who we are, what we can do, and how we want to be. How is it that anxiety can be such a powerful force that it encompasses not only worry and fear but our belief that we are okay, legitimate human beings in our own right? Anxiety can chip away at self-acceptance, but there are ways to pick up the pieces and put them back together. You can create the courage to be self-confident despite anxiety.