Anxious you might have a problem with worrying constantly? Can’t stop worrying, struggling with anxiety and feeling stuck? You aren’t alone, especially in Sydney!
According to Beyond Blue, one in fourteen young Australians (6.9%) aged 4-17 experienced an anxiety disorder in 2015. This is equivalent to approximately 278,000 young people. With adults, that figure extends to one in seven (14.4%) who’ve experienced anxiety disorders, or in Sydney that’s approximately 720,000 people. That’s heck of a lot!
Who needs anxiety treatment?
If your worries are excessive, you may have anxiety and physical symptoms, procrastinate from getting things done, avoid potentially fun activities, and you may be doing damage to your relationships by not connecting and enjoying time with those you genuinely like and love. In short, anxiety can really stop you from living your life.
While worrying and feeling nervous is something that all human beings experience, as with many things in life, too much of something may not be good for you. Normal anxiety can become a problem when it is:
- excessive,
- feels uncontrollable,
- is experienced as intrusive in your life,
- is persistent – seeming to always be around,
- and causes you significant distress, or impairs your ability to go about your day-to-day life.
This is when normal anxiety becomes generalised anxiety disorder.
Some common things people have told us they experience when they have generalised anxiety are:
- Chronic worries running through their head. They occur over and over again like a broken record
- Uncontrollable anxiety. Having a strong desire to be in control of their emotions, yet feeling as if the anxiety and worry has taken control over them and there is nothing they can do to stop it
- Intrusive thoughts. No matter how much they try not to worry, not to think about things that make them nervous, these unwanted thoughts keep popping back into their mind
- Hating uncertainty. Wanting to know what is going to happen in the future and finding the experience of ‘not knowing’ very difficult indeed
- Feeling restless, keyed up, on edge and unable to relax
- Being physically tense. Feeling nervy or uptight, and having tightness or stiffness in the muscles of their body
- Sleep disturbance. Having trouble falling asleep, maintaining sleep, or experiencing unsettled sleep, because their mind is constantly ticking over with worry
- Problems concentrating and focusing on a task
- Procrastinating about getting things done. Putting things off because it all feels too much and too overwhelming
- Avoiding situations in which they worry or get anxious and nervous.