The notion that it's possible to spot a person with anxiety is mortifying to the tens of millions of people living with anxiety disorders. With its physical side effects that can affect every system of the body and its strong emotional symptoms, many people experiencing anxiety have an added worry that their discomfort is evident to the world. Surprisingly, this guide for spotting a person with anxiety just might make anxiety sufferers feel a little bit better. 

Anxiety awareness is important all the time, but during Mental Illness Awareness Week, a special spotlight shines on mental illness, including anxiety disorders. Such a spotlight brings light and warmth to anxiety, which is so often swept away into dark corners. Read on for information that can help increase awareness of anxiety and anxiety disorders and lessen some of the frustrations that come with a lack of understanding.

Worrying about mistakes goes hand-in-hand with anxiety (Worry: How Much is Too Much?) and we need to learn to stop worrying over spilt milk. As irksome as they can be, mistakes are simply events, incidents in our lives, but they don’t need to become our lives, taking over our wellbeing. How we react to mistakes affects our mental health. To reduce anxiety, including generalized anxiety disorder, it's important to stop worrying about mistakes. 

The effects of anxiety are your starting point for healing, even though they are many and miserable (These Awful Effects of Anxiety Must Stop). Anxiety affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally. Anxiety can disrupt our lives in profound ways, preventing us from being who we want to be and doing what we want to do. Anxiety exists on a spectrum from mild to severe, but whether it is a disturbance or a disorder, the effects of anxiety are negative and far-reaching. That said, they're good, too, for the effects of anxiety are a starting point for healing. 

Anxiety has many different moods; frustratingly, anxiety isn’t a single, simple concept. No one can count on it to be anything other than disruptive and erratic. Perhaps you’ve experienced an all-too-common situation. You’re working hard to manage anxiety. Your anxiety symptoms have lessened and your life feels less restricted. Then, seemingly without warning, bam. Anxiety strikes again, and this time it feels worse somehow. This is a normal experience for people living with anxiety because anxiety has different moods. What are the different moods of anxiety and how can you tame them? 

Is it possible to distract yourself from fear? Fear is a basic human reaction, an instinct even, to something we perceive as a threat to our safety or general wellbeing. It sounds an alarm in the brain and kicks the fight-or-flight response into gear. When we are afraid, we want to run from what it is that's making us feel scared, or we want to confront it and do battle. Our instinct typically isn't to ignore fear by distracting ourselves with something else. Can you distract yourself from fear? Do you want to? 

I must admit, anxiety-related procrastination plays a part in my life. There are far too many days when I find it very hard to cope with the complicated, impossibly fast push and pull of life. I can feel as though the world is too big and frightening and all I want to do is focus on the tiny acts of nurturing that help me cope minute to minute: nursing a large cup of tea, taking a nap or hiding in the bathroom to get away from the feeling of eyes and supposed scrutiny all around. These things look and feel like procrastination due to my anxiety.

Guilt is a distressing effect of anxiety. Guilt is the uncomfortable experience of self-flagellation for thinking, feeling, doing, and generally just existing,wrong (These Awful Effects of Anxiety Must Stop). Anxiety is the loud, critical voice in our head that provides a running commentary on the things we do wrong (wrong from anxiety's perspective, that is). As if it weren't bad enough to worry, fret, and fear that we've done something wrong, anxiety takes our discomfort to a new level. A very distressing effect of anxiety is guilt.

I think that it is all too easy to laugh off anxiety and social media addiction as being part and parcel of an entitled generation who are hooked on the instant gratification of likes and comments. However, often the overuse or misuse of social media can reflect an ocean of unhappiness below the surface, breaking through in tiny drips. Anxiety and social media addiction are often related.

Is fear in the way of your decision-making? Fear is, after all, the ultimate four-letter word -- more heinous than the other one beginning with the same letter. Fear, and its close cousin anxiety, can stop us in our tracks by getting in the way of decision-making. When fear and anxiety paralyze us by preventing us from making decisions, it can interfere in the quality of our lives. Good thing it's possible to break through fear's barriers, make decisions, and move forward.