Is Anxiety Normal?

Anxiety is a normal response to stress. When you perceive a threat, your nervous system creates a state of physiological, emotional, biochemical and behavioral arousal. This arousal prepares you for the exertion required to deal with the stress.

The Fight or Flight Response

• The body has an innate, automatic reaction that is triggered when a person appraises harm or threat. In the late 1930's, Walter Cannon described this complex, coordinated physical and chemical process that takes place and dubbed it the "fight or flight" response. Fear and anxiety are emotional components of this response.

Daily Anxiety

• Just waking up each morning initiates the "fight or flight" response. Within 30 minutes of waking, your body is flooded with stress hormones such as cortisol to prepare you to deal with your daily challenges.

External Sources of Anxiety

• Anxiety is triggered throughout the day by a variety of external situations such as work, interpersonal conflict, life events, daily hassles, and the constant challenge to respond to external demands.

Genetic Individual Differences in Anxiety

• The tendency to experience more or less anxiety than others has a genetic component. Some people are born with genes that predispose them to experience greater anxiety in response to stress. For example, the National Institute of Health reports that people with the tryptophan hydroxylase-2 gene variation show greater physiological and emotional responses to stressful situations.

Excessive Anxiety

• Even normal anxiety responses to stress can become harmful to mental and physical health when the stress is persistent or chronic. When anxiety becomes disruptive to your well being or daily functioning, seek help in dealing with the anxiety and the stress.