From childhood to midlife and beyond: how to handle anxiety at every age

"Anxiety is part of our fight, flight, freeze response, which is a helpful mechanism to keep us safe. But some people have a dysfunctional relationship with anxiety, which means they are in a heightened state of alarm and vigilance all of the time. When we look at what is happening in the world at the moment, the one thing we have an abundance of is uncertainty. If you look at a textbook definition of anxiety, it is an intolerance of uncertainty."

"We need anxiety. It just sometimes misreads the room. When we don't feel like we have control, anxiety presents us with the worst-case scenario so we can feel prepared. Sometimes that is useful, but sometimes it fills in gaps where there is no knowledge, and that is when it can become unhelpful."

"The problem is that fighting or avoiding anxiety not only doesn't make it go away, but makes it worse. So if that is not going to work, how do we live with it? How do we use our anxiety in a way that can benefit us? Whatever stage of life you are at, it is never too late to address anxiety."

Anxiety has become a widespread epidemic affecting significant portions of the population, with one in five UK adults experiencing it regularly and hundreds of children daily seeking NHS treatment. Anxiety functions as a protective fight-flight-freeze response, but some individuals develop dysfunctional relationships with it, remaining in constant heightened alarm. The condition fundamentally represents an intolerance of uncertainty, intensified by current global instability. While anxiety can be beneficial by preparing us for potential threats, it often becomes counterproductive by filling knowledge gaps with worst-case scenarios. Critically, fighting or avoiding anxiety worsens the condition. Effective management involves learning to live with anxiety and harness it constructively rather than eliminating it entirely.

Read at www.theguardian.com