Top 10 Feelings And Signs Of Anxiety

For many years anxiety was viewed by people as some sort of a weakness in character. They attributed this state of mind and body to the weakness of will. The basic recommendation for battling anxiety was just to gather up one’s will and go on with life, as if nothing was really happening inside that person’s head. However, once you gain an understanding of what anxiety really is and notice the signs of anxiety, you would also understand that will has little to do with this condition.

Now anxiety is not just a temporary state of despair, experienced by any person once or several times during their life span. Anxiety is the state that affects both mind and body. It is not just a mental condition and it has multiple and very specific bodily manifestations.

Even though some signs of anxiety include deep feeling of the blues and sadness, this is no temporary thing. Most of the anxiety symptoms have to last for over 2 weeks of time, to fall into a major anxiety condition. The worst thing about anxiety is that it affects the entire life of a person: their self-perception, physical health sensations, emotional and mental state, the way they view life and all its circumstances. Anxiety makes it hard for a person to adequately evaluate their past, present and future environments.

Anxiety greatly affects the mood and mental capabilities of a person. It makes it hard to focus on thoughts, control emotions along with viewing the positive things in life. Anxiety sufferers eating and sleeping orders get disturbed. People with anxiety cannot have adequate self-perception. They tend to fall into gloominess, seeing nothing good either in their past or future, or coming their way. Following are the most common factors leading to utter and prolonged anxiety.

Top 10 Feelings And Signs Of Anxiety:

1. Loss of Joy in Life
This is one of the most common feelings and signs of anxiety, as it makes life not only empty and hardly enjoyable, but makes it hardly bearable. People stop enjoying the once pleasant activities or things in life. Life seems gray and days seem to be tasteless. Their life experience turns into a routine of equally unpleasant days. This anxiety sign may cause people to withdraw from their social circles and social activities.

2. Sadness
Anxiety is not just blues that last for few days and passes away. Sadness caused due to anxiety is deep, prolonged and can even be chronic. It can last for over 2 weeks of time. In many cases, if analyzed by the depressed people, such sadness has no real grounds. None the less, it occupies the thoughts and emotions of the depressed person and starts to become the prevalent state of mind.

3. Sense of Guilt
This feeling is more typical for women with depressive disorder. When men get depressed, they tend to blame others for it. Women, on the contrary, tend to put all the blame upon them. They sink deep into the feeling of guilt, which consequently distorts their self-perception and lowers their self-esteem.

4. Pessimism
With depressed people, pessimism becomes the prevalent state of mind and attitude towards life. They start not only to lose hope in good things to come their way in the future or present, but they also start viewing their past with pessimism. They start feeling, as if nothing good has ever happened to them in the past. They lose the adequate perception of their life.

5. Sleep Changes
There are two major kinds of sleep changes, experienced by depressed people. The first one is a typical anxiety sign and is called insomnia. That is when people have a hard time falling asleep and do not get enough deep and healthy sleep. These are typical signs of anxiety, and more inherent to women, is oversleeping. In this case, a person sleeps too much and has a hard time waking up or getting out of bed.

6. Isolation
When people develop low self-esteem or lose the joy of life, they start withdrawing from their social circle. They may even tend to isolate themselves from their nearest family. This leads to a deep sense of loneliness and throws them even deeper into the anxiety pit.

7. Fatigue
This feeling of anxiety is equally inherent both for men and women. People may start feeling, as if even the simplest life tasks or chores tire them out extremely. They feel worn out, even before they start their day. Some people with this anxiety sign may have a hard time starting the day or getting out of bed.

8. Decision Making Problems
To make the right decisions in life, we need to have proper and adequate self-perception and perception of our life. However, anxiety deeply affects our perception ability and makes it inadequate. That is why the difficulty in decision-making is a widely experienced feeling for people dealing with anxiety. People feel incapable of making the right choices and feel like they have no interest. This anxiety feeling puts lots of strain on men and single mothers especially.

9. Eating Disorder
Eating disorders also manifest themselves through two major patterns: overeating and under eating. Overeating is a typical sign of anxiety and is more inherent in women. It is often accompanied by oversleeping, and people with this anxiety sign promptly gain extra weight. Under eating or getting anorexic is a typical depressive sign. People start rapidly losing weight. Such signs can be life threatening as well, as any weight loss over 5 percent could potentially be dangerous for one’s health.

10. Suicidal Thoughts or Acts
This is one of the gravest and life threatening feelings and signs of anxiety. People may get stuck, fixing their minds on death. They may possess threat to their own lives due to suicidal acts.