What Causes Anxiety?
If you have suffered from an anxiety attack or panic attack or have general anxiety, you may be wondering, ‘What causes anxiety?’ Another question that must be answered first is, ‘What is anxiety?’ Many people think of anxiety in terms of being an illness or something that can be ‘caught’. This simply is not the case.
Anxiety is not some illness, it is a response to stimuli. A section of the brain known as the amygdala is in charge of keeping us on our toes so to speak. If you were walking down the road and sudenly noticed a car coming right at you, you get a shot of adrenaline which helps you react faster and get out of the way. This is also known as the ‘fight or flight syndrome’. This is triggered by the amygdala.
This response has been necessary to the survival of human beings. Unfortunately, those who suffer from panic attacks or anxiety have an overactive amygdala or hypersensitive amygdala if that makes more sense.
What may not seem like a big deal to some may be a huge deal to those who are hypersensitive. This is why some people may be classified as having an anxiety disorder. This is a brief explanation of what anxiety is but we still haven’t covered exactly what causes anxiety.
Well, knowing that anxiety is a response due to the amygdala or fight or flight, we can assume that anxiety is a biological factor. While this may be the case in some situations, it is not always so cut and dry.
Yes anxiety or an overactive amygdala can be due to biological factors. However, many of us have learned to be anxious. We have trained our amygdala to respond in a certain manner based on a situation that may have caused us discomfort as a child or as an adult.
Let’s assume you have anxiety anytime you go near water (pools, rivers, ocean-for swimming) for recreational purposes. We can also assume you do not know how to swim. It is possible that as a child you had a frightening experience while trying to learn how to swim. You now as an adult continue to associate water and swimming as being scary and dangerous and your amygdala reacts as such.
Unfortunately, what you have learned you can’t unlearn. But, you can recondition yourself or your amygdala to respond in a different manner.
So what causes anxiety? Both biological as well as learned behaviors are the culprit for an overactive amygdala. You can go in search of your personal first experience with anxiety or what causes your anxiety, but all you really need to know is that anxiety is a sensation or reaction due to your amygdala and that it can be treated.
