Anxiety is one of the most common human experiences and is related to different psychological, biological and social elements. Despite being a common experience, anxiety can easily become a major suffering condition. Likewise, it is an experience that is frequently confused with others (such as stress, anguish or fear), which also generate discomfort.
Ironically, the reasons why anxiety is generated; or rather, not knowing these reasons, is one of the elements that trigger anxiety. Below we will review different definitions of anxiety, and its relationship with other similar concepts, to finally offer an answer to the following question: Is it normal to have anxiety for no reason? Let’s see it.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, anxiety has been one of the main topics of study in psychology, and related areas, such as medicine or physiology. The latter has generated the problem of accurately defining “anxiety.”, and from there address it appropriately. Specifically in psychology, its different theoretical currents usually face contradictions and overlaps with which anxiety has ended up mixed with anguish, stress, fear, tension, and others.
In fact, in the diagnostic manuals for the classification of mental disorders themselves, and in their translations, anxiety the concepts of anguish, stress or fear have frequently been mixed through which different manifestations, both psychological and physical, are grouped.
From anguish to anxiety
The psychologists Sierra, Ortega and Zubeidat (2003) have carried out a theoretical study where they invite us to reflect on this topic, and they tell us that in some of the most classic definitions, the concept of “anguish” had been related to the predominance of physical reactions: the paralysis, the awe and the clarity at the moment of capturing the causing phenomenon Contrary to “anxiety”, which had been defined by the predominance of psychological symptoms: the feeling of suffocation, danger or shock; accompanied by the rush to look for effective solutions to the feeling of threat.
Regarding the latter, the authors tell us that Sigmund Freud had already proposed the German term “Angst” at the beginning of the 20th century to refer to physiological activation. This last concept was translated into English as “Anxiety”, and in Spanish it was translated doubly into “anguish” and “anxiety”.
Anxiety is currently defined as a response that generates psychological tension accompanied by a somatic correlate, which is not attributable to real dangers, but presents as a persistent and diffuse state close to panic. It is related to future dangers, often indefinable and unpredictable (Sierra, Ortega and Zubeidat, 2003). In this sense, anxiety tends to paralyze, both due to hyperactivity and lack of reaction.
It is an experience different from fear, because fear occurs in the face of present, defined and localized stimuli, which means it is an experience that has a rational explanation, and that tends more to activate than to paralyze. In the same sense, anxiety has been closely related to fear, because is caused by a clearly identifiable stimulus In both cases, the person has a clear representation of the stimuli or situations that generate them.
From anxiety to stress
Finally we have encountered the problem of differentiating between anxiety and stress. Some authors suggest that this last concept has come to replace anxiety, both in research and interventions. Others believe that stress is now the term that refers to the physiological response, and anxiety is what is related to the subjective response. The term stress is perhaps the most difficult to define currently, since it has recently been used almost indiscriminately by many areas of study.
In any case, those who study it usually agree that stress is an experience related to important changes in the person’s environment ; and with feelings of frustration, boredom or lack of control. It is then an adaptive process that triggers different emotions and allows us to relate to the environment, as well as face its demands. However, it is an experience that can also be generalized and that refers to the tensions that our societies are currently experiencing.
Anxiety for no reason?
If we summarize all of the above we can see that feeling anxious for no apparent reason is not only normal, but is also a condition of the anxiety experience itself. This is a situation that They have a psychological origin and a physical correlate so this lack can also be an objective of therapeutic work.
In this sense, and given that anxiety has recently been studied in relation to the physical correlate, there is an important part of psychology and medicine that has approached it as a multicausal phenomenon, where different triggering events can be identified. Both psychological, social and physiological, for example, from traumatic events to frequent use of psychotropic substances
If it is normal, is it avoidable?
As we have seen, there are experiences of discomfort that are part of human beings and that can be adaptive, both physically and psychologically. Is about discomforts that manifest themselves on a psychological and somatic level but they are not isolated, but in permanent connection with the demands and characteristics of the environment.
The problem is when these discomforts no longer act as adaptive or stabilizing mechanisms, but rather occur in practically all the circumstances that surround us, including circumstances without concrete reality. This is a problem because, if the reason for the discomfort has to do with everything around us (even the most everyday and most intimate), it easily gives us the feeling that it has no end. That is, it becomes generalized.
This is when it comes to anxiety that has become cyclical, which can cause permanent or repetitive symptoms of suffering as well as affecting our daily activities, our relationships and our vital processes.
In short, anxiety can be a functional reaction of our body; it can keep us alert to different stimulations, whether positive or negative. But, if it becomes a very frequent experience, caused by a diffuse perception of danger in the most everyday situations, then it can generate significant suffering. However, this is a type of avoidable and controllable suffering.
One of the first things to do to counteract it is precisely to attend to that feeling (psychological and physiological) of generalized threat, as well as explore the apparent lack of reasons that generate it.
