hey there everybody and welcome back to the addiction and co-occurring Disorders Treatment
manual this is unit 1 part 5 an introduction to anxiety I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes
although most of us don't need to be introduced to anxiety in
this part we're going to Define what anxiety disorders are and explore how
they may interact with your other mental health physical health or addiction issues
so unlike some other disorders there's not a whole lot of symptoms that somebody needs to
qualify as having anxiety however people with anxiety disorders generally feel Restless or
keyed up or on edge most of the time they have difficulty sitting still their mind may be racing
they're often easily fatigued well when you have difficulty sitting still and your mind's racing
that's exhausting so it makes sense that you're easily fatigued they have difficulty concentrating
or their mind may go blank well when you're anxious your HPA Axis or your threat response
system is activated when that is activated especially when it's super activated it makes it
really difficult to focus your brain is in fight or flea mode not focus on the PowerPoint mode
so it makes sense that you'll have difficulty concentrating when you're worried about something
when you have anxiety about something those ruminations or unwanted thoughts are sort of
screaming in your head so it's hard to focus on what's in front of you because all of those
anxious thoughts are so loud in your inside your head irritability is another symptom of anxiety
anxiety is the flea part of the fight or flea reaction anxiety is part of your stress response
or your threat response when you're feeling unsafe when you're feeling threatened or you
think that there might be a threat in the future you're worried about something then that threat
response is activated you're primed you're ready to to defend yourself well unfortunately that can
come out as irritability when you're anxious P you often respond with irritability or anger
to people things events that normally wouldn't trigger you but because you were already primed
because you already felt vulnerable you responded more strongly and more irritably to those things
and people with anxiety often experience a lot of muscle tension when you are primed to fight
or flee when you're anxious when you're primed for responding to a threat you keep your muscles tense
think about athletes you know they don't stand on the goal line they don't
do whatever they're doing and just stand flat-footed they're typically bouncing on
their toes they're ready they're primed to go and having those muscles tense and ready to spring
into action is part of the stress response people with anxiety feel that way all the time so their
muscles are tense and ready to spring into action all the time which is what we call muscle tension
and sleeping or eating disturbances people with anxiety because that stress response is
activated because they don't feel safe because they're worried about impending threats have
difficulty relaxing enough to get good quality sleep so although they get fatigued easily and
they're exhausted they're unable or frequently unable to relax enough to get good quality sleep
so they may either not sleep at all they've got insomnia they may wake up throughout the night or
they may sleep but it's not quality sleep so they wake up and they find themselves napping a lot
because they're just not getting rested and eating disturbances are also common because high sugar
high fat foods trigger dopamine and endorphins which can be calming to people who are are feeling
anxious so we may see some food addiction as a response to that particular anxiety symptom
just like the other parts that we talked about I want you to think about how each symptom of
anxiety could trigger addictive behavior how each symptom of anxiety could trigger depression anger
guilt grief and jealousy remember depression is a feeling people have when they're at a gas
when they feel hopeless and hopeless well when you're anxious a lot or constantly at
a certain point you may start feeling like you're at a gas and hopeless and hopeless
when you have anxiety a lot again you may not be acting the way you think you should act you
may not be able to attend to things the way you think you should which can trigger guilt
and if you miss things that like going to your kids recitals or something because
your anxiety was too high then you may feel grief about letting people down
and you may be jealous of people who aren't anxious or jealousy is anger at people for having
something that you want your anxiety especially abandonment anxiety can trigger a whole world
of jealousy in people so get curious list each thing addictive behavior depression anger guilt
grief and Jealousy on different sheets of paper or on different lines on the same sheet of paper
and think about how each symptom of anxiety might trigger that feeling or behavior in you
and just like in the other parts think about three healthy ways that you can
address each symptom in order to prevent it from getting worse or prevent relapse