Causes Of Anxiety

At any time in our lives an unexpected event can occur that we interpret as dangerous, threatening or harmful and cause an anxiety attack: tachycardia, palpitations, tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, feeling of dizziness and instability, tremors, sweating, “knot” in the stomach, nausea, dry mouth, etc.

In most cases this psychosomatic reaction is justified, it is the natural and adaptive response of our body to danger.

Sometimes, we find ourselves faced with an event that takes place within the normality of daily life and that, suddenly and for no apparent reason (does not present danger or threat), produces a strong emotional impact and a excessive anxiety attack which cannot be attributed to any specific cause (unlike phobias in which the anxiety attack arises when the stimulus that activates it is presented, or in post-traumatic stress when some event in the environment reminds the person of the traumatic event suffered. ).

Moments later we react and ask ourselves the reason for this impact and we realize that, although the event could have had some disturbing connotation, we do not find a reason that justifies the intense physiological response that has been triggered and we come to the conviction that it should not have been activated the emotional alarm, or at least, not so intensely. Given this, it is normal to wonder why anxiety occurs and what its causes are. Why does this phenomenon occur? Why does an apparently inconsequential event generate a physiological reaction with the intensity that one with a greater emotional charge would?

Anxiety can arise spontaneously in different situations in everyday life that appear inconsequential and do not carry an appreciable emotional charge and which, however, provoke an intense emotional reaction in the person. Given that the origin of this anxiety cannot be associated with the external stimulus, since it does not present immediate danger, threat or harm to physical integrity, we must look for the origin within the person that is, accepting that it is one’s own psychological Self (the self either itself) the one who has been threatened or violated. It can be said that although the spark that starts the “emotional fire” is in the external stimulus, its main focus is internal.

An example Typical of this phenomenon is observed when our intervention in an event has not been very successful, or when we interact with a person, either during a conversation or in a spontaneous and accidental relationship, and they make a negative comment, a reproach, a call for attention about the behavior carried out, a negative criticism, etc. towards us and, in those moments, we perceive an anxiety attack caused by the activation of some negative emotion.

In these cases, although various emotions can be activated, the most significant are the so-called self-conscious or self-evaluative: shame, guilt and pride, that are usually associated with others such as fear, anger or disgust. Although pride is normally a positive emotion (satisfaction for having achieved something important), sometimes it can appear as negative (arrogance, arrogance, deification, haughtiness, conceit, egomania, narcissism, etc.).

These emotions arise when a positive or negative evaluation of the person in relation to a series of criteria about what constitutes appropriate action in various areas, and they have in common that the intensity they present is not consistent with the negative characteristics that could be attributed to the event itself.

Below are the 10 reasons why anxiety exists, why it is triggered in unexpected situations and why it sometimes becomes dysfunctional and poses a problem for the person who experiences it. The causes of anxiety are the following:

1. The negative assessment of one’s own person

The cause of the anxiogenic reaction that underlies these assumptions is what links them to self-perception and assessment of the psychological self of the person who has been threatened or harmed by the event that occurred: loss of self-esteem, feeling of guilt, sense of responsibility, attack on beliefs and vital values ​​such as freedom, trust, justice, respect, etc.

2. Irrational beliefs

It therefore has to do with the vulnerability of the person to a certain stimulus of the environment that negatively affects some deeply rooted beliefs: “I have to do everything well”, “the opinion of others is important to me”, “what is happening to me is unfair”, “I must assume my responsibilities”, “I cannot They can treat me like that”, etc.

3. An event triggers a negative thought

The origin of this specific vulnerability that “awakens” suddenly and unjustified to the event that occurred may be related to the association of the current event with a past one, that is, the cause of the anxiety attack would not be the current event itself, but its relationship with some negative experience from the past with which it is related. Therefore, there must exist in the event produced “something” (a kind of signal or marker) related to the Self and stored in the autobiographical memory that has triggered the emotional alteration suffered.

4. Judgments about ourselves

Experiences are stored and contain labels that identify them and serve to remember them (they activate the neural network that represents it), so this current event may have presented some of these labels, causing the activation of the emotional system. In this sense, it must be taken into account that self-evaluative emotions have as their antecedent some type of judgment of the person about their own actions, that is, we make a negative assessment about some personal or own aspect, some action we have taken. And this self-evaluation does not have to be conscious or explicit, we do not necessarily have to realize that it is happening.

5. Early experiences

The genesis of this association would be in a first event (normally during childhood, although it can also occur at any time in our lives) in which, despite not having great significance, specific personal circumstances occurred (lack of attachment and affection, feeling of abandonment or rejection, low self-esteem, depressed mood, etc.) that caused a strong impact on the psychological Self (for example, feeling humiliated, ashamed, defamed) and caused a very intense emotional reaction that would be accompanied by thoughts such as: “what was done was wrong”, “it was my fault”. mine”, “I have made the most horrible fool of myself” “they have hurt my pride”, “I am not at their level”, etc. and it would be recorded in emotional memory.

6. The conditioning of the emotional response

This overexcitation of the emotional system generated in the person a hypersensitivity of the emotional system to this event which makes him very vulnerable to it, causing a predisposition to emotional reactions of guilt, shame, fear, distrust, etc. before events where this Self was affected, so that, when a second event subsequently occurs that contains some element or factor (a label or marker) that is also represented in the original event, the emotional system identifies it. like out this one and provokes the same response that it generated in its day, without this activation coming from the current interpretation of it carried out by the cognitive system.

In this case one could speak of a learning process in which the person “learns” this emotional response by associating both events through the common label or marker, and will thus react automatically in other similar situations. This would be a type of conditioned learning (Pavlovian conditioning is a basic form of learning that is based on the association of emotional responses to new situations).

One of the most important characteristics of this type of learning is that it involves automatic or reflex responses not voluntary behaviors (anxiety associated with a natural stimulus that generated fear, for example an accident, is transferred to another stimulus by conditioning. In addition, there is evidence in favor of direct conditioning experiences, especially for agoraphobia and claustrophobia, which frequently originate from past traumatic experiences ). According to the above, it can be said that the shame, guilt or wounded pride experienced now would be conditioned by a pre-existing event.

7. The experiences

It is shown that life experiences that generate mental phenomena (perceptions, thoughts, emotions, feelings, intentions, etc.) leave a mark in our system of neural networks, that is, there is a physiological correlate of the experience and, furthermore, that similar experiences are interconnected, so that these traces can be reactivated when the current experience is similar to the original, even if the similarity is not complete (which is why part of the current concern is the memory of previous moments).

8. Cognitive distortions

On the other hand, the person’s vulnerability and the intensity of the emotional response to these stimuli can be aggravated if cognitive distortions intervene (personalization, catastrophism, selective perception, etc.) or the person is in an altered state of mind (anxious-depressive). ), because some negative thoughts have more or less strength depending on the emotional state and perspective we have at the time they appear.

9. The survival function

A feature that accompanies this phenomenon is that, despite being convinced of the unimportance of the event, we cannot voluntarily stop the intense emotional activation produced. We continue to feel bad, the unpleasant physical symptoms do not disappear and the memory of the event becomes a disturbing thought that intrudes into the reality of the present moment, interfering with our attention to what we do, see or hear (affects the content of working memory). or work and does not allow us to concentrate on what we are doing: studying, working, talking, observing a landscape, a movie, etc.) because in our state of consciousness there is an overlap between the representation of external reality that We perceive at every moment with our senses and the disturbing thought about the event that occurred (internal reality that struggles to dominate the external one), thus causing the mental state of confusion and mental nebulosity that bothers us so much.

It must be taken into account that The emotional system is designed to process information, evaluate it, and formulate a response quickly given the threatening situation giving preference to facing the situation over other less urgent tasks, which is why it intrudes into normal thoughts and actions as a recurring and dominant thought to prevent us from being distracted and focusing on what threatens us.

10. The emotional memory of the amygdala

From a physiological level, the difficulty in consciously and voluntarily deactivating emotional activation and anxiety has to do with one of the brain structures involved in the phenomenon: the amygdala complex. The neurophysiologist Joseph Ledoux points out that the amygdala does not require a conscious stimulus to activate and highlights the importance of the direct communication path between the thalamus and the amygdala in emotional reactions. This pathway allows emotional responses to initiate in the amygdala before we are aware of the stimulus that makes us react or before we identify the sensations experienced, which can be interpreted as evidence that there is a precognitive emotional processing.

The emotional memory Primigenia is stored in the amygdala and has enormous adaptive value. The function of this amygdaloid complex in relation to this phenomenon is:

• The evaluation process occurs in the amygdala about the emotional importance of a specific stimulus based on previous experiences with it, coins the experience as very harmful and strengthens the neural connections that form the psychic imprint that represents it.
• The amygdala is related to learning and the maintenance of the emotional meaning of sensory signals. It can remember the stimuli associated with a disturbing experience, so that on future exposures to the stimuli, the response is activated more efficiently.
• The amygdala also affects the structuring of memories through the association of memories with emotional states, facilitating greater connection and fixation of the elements to be remembered, thus allowing their consolidation.

Here you can see more information about the amygdala and the emotional nervous system.

To face this disturbing situation and calm anxiety, the following keys are necessary:

1. Relaxation techniques

The action should first be aimed at reducing anxiety through one of the relaxation techniques. We must understand and accept that we cannot avoid the first emotional impact since it originates in the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and we cannot act on it through will (most of the emotional activity of the brain occurs in an unconscious way). volitional).

2. Attention training

Under normal conditions, if we avoid thinking about the event, the emotional disturbance will decrease over time (unless we think about it constantly and it becomes a recurring thought that will keep the emotional system activated). To do this, it is advisable to focus our attention on other things, thus avoiding disturbing thoughts (following the psychologist W. Mischel’s method of “strategic allocation of attention” as a self-control technique). The less time the thought remains in memory, the less it will interfere with our daily lives and little by little the unpleasant psychosomatic effects will fade. Attention can be trained with meditation techniques such as mindfulness.

3. Self-control techniques

One issue to keep in mind is that in people with an easily excitable temperament, the emotion activated by the event is usually accompanied by anger, hostility or indignation and generates an automatic response of “counterattack” towards the person who “apparently” has attacked his Psychological Self, giving rise to conflictive situations that worsen the situation. In these cases the person should learn to repress the impulse to react violently towards the other through self-control techniques.

4. Introspection

Removing the thought may be a quick and effective solution for the moment, but the acquired hypersensitivity of the emotional system to these disturbing stimuli will persist for future situations. That’s why it would be interesting Identify what emotion we feel and discover what factor of the psychological self has been violated in the event (self-esteem, feeling of guilt or responsibility, personal beliefs, etc.). Then we will have to find out what event in our life at that time had a very great emotional impact and established the neural connections that are activated now in similar events.

5. Psychotherapy: self-knowledge and self-esteem

The moment we know the reason for the activation of the emotional system and identify the emotion we feel, we begin to face the problem. We keep distance between the Self and the disturbing memory (it is interesting here to be able to distinguish, as William James suggests, between the “I” as observer and the “Me” as object of experience, that is, between the I that is suffering the anxiety attack and the conscious I that observes this anxious state and does not allow itself to be dominated by it). Finally, it would be advisable to introduce some cognitive therapy technique to reduce this hypersensitivity and vulnerability to these types of situations.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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