Feelings of anxiety, symptoms, causes and help from a specialist at the ROSA clinic in Moscow

Anxiety is a negative mood with feelings of restlessness, tension and fear. In moderation, such emotions are useful: they help mobilize strength and find a way out of extreme situations. But there must be a reason for concern and normally it lasts for a limited period of time.

If a person constantly experiences feelings of anxiety and worry for no reason, this may indicate the presence of a mental disorder. In the absence of help, constant stress wears out the nervous system and the body as a whole, which leads to a breakdown of adaptation mechanisms and the development of chronic diseases.

If you notice that you cannot relax for a long time, then you should think about visiting a specialist.

In pathological cases, a state of anxiety and restlessness for no reason is manifested by both mental and physical symptoms.

Mental symptoms:

Symptoms

Anxiety manifests itself in three groups of signs:

Psychological: a feeling of fear, internal tension and anxiety, in severe cases - panic, obsessive thoughts of alarming content.
Physiological autonomic reactions: redness or paleness of the skin, dry mucous membranes, palpitations and shortness of breath, sensations of pressure in the chest or abdomen, “waves throughout the body,” fluctuations in blood pressure, etc.
Behavioral: freezing and numbness, restless tossing and restlessness, attempts to escape, lack of normal sleep.

The first two groups are necessarily present, the last (behavioral) may be absent if anxiety is not very pronounced.

Feelings of anxiety with sensations of heaviness in the chest or in the heart area indicate an anxious-depressive state. Such complaints are most pronounced in the morning and may subside in the evening. The presence of such complaints indicates severe overexcitation of the nervous system, and not the presence of lung or heart disease.

Causes of unreasonable anxiety and worry

The onset of anxiety disorder is influenced by heredity. It has been discovered that certain brain structures and features of biological processes play an important role in the occurrence of fear and anxiety. Personality characteristics, physical health problems, lifestyle and various types of addictions also matter. Sometimes causeless anxiety and worry have no reason. Negative feelings usually have a trigger—an event or thought that triggers an anxious response. However, most people are unaware of their triggers and believe their emotions are unfounded. In this case, only a specialist will help you understand why anxiety occurs for no reason.

There are a number of diseases whose symptoms include constant anxiety. With unreasonable fear and anxiety, the reasons may be as follows:

Generalized anxiety disorder: persistent nervousness and worry about small things that are usually visible to others and last for 6 months or more. Begins in adolescence and intensifies with age.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: obsessive thoughts and fears that are accompanied by compulsive actions that do not bring relief. There is obsessive-compulsive neurosis - a person is indomitably haunted by memories that reproduce a traumatic situation.
Phobias: irrational fear of any, even mundane, things. Accompanied by uncontrollable panic and physical manifestations.
A panic attack is a painful and sudden attack of panic, which is accompanied by a fear of death and vivid somatic symptoms. Regular occurrence of panic attacks means the development of panic disorder.
Post-traumatic stress disorder: occurs after a severe traumatic situation and is accompanied by high levels of anxiety, avoidance and flashbacks.

These are the most common examples, but pathological anxiety can be a symptom of other disorders or a consequence of unsuccessful management of stress. If you want to understand why you feel anxious for no reason, you should consult a doctor. Without finding out the main factor and working on it, it is impossible to restore health and mental balance.

How to get rid

If anxiety is not a symptom of an illness, then there is no need to get rid of it. It, being a normal defense mechanism, will go away on its own as soon as the stress or danger has passed. In cases where anxiety gets out of control and becomes a symptom of a disease, treatment will be required. Painful anxiety is treated by a psychotherapist or psychiatrist.

The most common universal way to quickly relieve anxiety is physical exercise. The load on the muscles allows you to switch overexcited brain structures. Exercises of several squats, push-ups or running until a feeling of physical fatigue appears quickly and safely removes the feeling of anxiety. Water procedures are also effective: cold shower, warm bath.

Causes of anxiety

Depending on the cause of anxiety, there are three types of anxiety: adaptive, primary, secondary. In a situation of immediate danger, conflict or acute stress, anxiety develops as a reaction to mobilize the body: all systems are activated, preparing for fight or flight. Primary true anxiety, developing into anxiety, is observed with neuroses, secondary - with some somatic and mental illnesses, taking medications, narcotic drugs.

Adaptive response

In contrast to pathological anxiety for no reason, in the event of real danger, an adaptation reaction develops. It is manifested by the activation of physiological systems - increased breathing, increased heart rate, a rush of blood to the muscles, mental readiness to flee or fight. Stress factors, threats to life or health provoke feelings of anxiety, aggression, and anxiety. Such adaptation reactions are triggered in the following cases:

Strict upbringing.
Within families where parents cultivate conscientiousness, integrity, and a sense of duty, the child does not have the freedom to express naturally existing fears and aggression. The suppression of these emotions leads to the consolidation of anxious and suspicious character traits, which are manifested by the fear of being open, obsessive fears, doubts, and uncertainty. A personality is formed with an increased level of anxiety and anxiety.
Unpredictability of behavior of others.
A state of constant adaptive readiness is necessary when interacting with unbalanced, emotionally unstable people and strangers. A feeling of anxiety is constantly present in children whose parents often change the rules of behavior (yesterday you couldn’t eat sweets, today you can). Other examples are speaking in front of an unfamiliar audience, talking with a hot-tempered boss. Stress prepares the psyche to quickly choose a reaction.
Danger situations.
When there is a real threat to well-being, concern arises for good reason. When the outcome of a situation is clearly dangerous (injury, serious illness, death), fear appears. If different outcomes are possible, a feeling of anxiety develops. Examples: waiting for the result of a medical examination in the presence of symptoms of illness, involuntary participation in hostilities, terrorist acts.
Conflict situations.
The clash of interests and different points of view is stressful. The psyche goes into a state of readiness for a quick reaction of defense, attack, or avoidance of conflict. Feeling anxious allows you to maintain a high level of tension. The more significant areas of life are affected in the confrontation, the more likely the development of a neurotic disorder with anxiety.

Primary concern

Persistent worry for no reason contributes to the appearance of anxiety - the dominant symptom of neurotic disorders. The development of neurosis occurs when situational anxiety manifests itself frequently, begins to spread to an increasingly wider range of events, and is felt almost constantly. Often a person understands that there is no reason for such experiences, but cannot change his condition. Feelings of anxiety are common in patients with the following neuroses:

Generalized anxiety disorder.
In patients with this disease, feelings of anxiety and restless experiences are stable. Emotional stress has no connection with real events. Fears are general: fear of an accident, illness (in the absence of symptoms), sudden death. People report "a bad feeling," a constant expectation of bad news. Generalized anxiety is more common in women and is accompanied by autonomic disorders – trembling, dizziness, nausea.
Panic disorder.
Patients suffer from periodically recurring panic attacks - sudden fear, physical discomfort for no reason. Panic attacks last from 5 to 20 minutes and are accompanied by shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, and chest pain. Anxiety is felt before an attack, when panic approaches. It is associated with the inability to control the attack and the fear of death.
Phobias.
Phobic disorders are characterized by a persistent, intense fear of specific objects or situations. The experiences are intense, often occur in the absence of a real threat, and cannot be controlled. They are caused by the potential possibility of developing a frightening situation or meeting an object of fear. Common options are claustrophobia, a feeling of intense fear from thoughts of meeting a dog, climbing to heights, or using a public toilet.
PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress is the consequences of a traumatic event (war, violence) with re-experiencing what happened in dreams and thoughts, mental numbness, and increased excitability. Anxiety often develops in the first stage, when a high focus on the trauma is maintained. Patients mentally return to the past and do not adapt well to real life.
Psychosomatic disorders.
In somatoform disorders, health concerns dominate - patients complain of somatic ailments, but medical examinations do not confirm the presence of the disease. A complex of experiences is formed due to increased attentiveness to body signals and lack of diagnosis.
Obsessive-compulsive neurosis.
Obsessive-compulsive neurosis is represented by obsessive thoughts and repetitive actions that relieve mental discomfort. The person is concerned about the presence of anxious thoughts and the inability to control them. The most common variant of obsessional neurosis is the idea that surrounding objects are contagious and frequent hand washing.

Secondary concern

Experiencing anxiety for no reason can be a symptom of mental disorders or somatic diseases, a side effect of medications, or the result of taking psychoactive substances. In all these cases, the feeling of anxiety arises secondary, not because of external events and their assessment, but as a result of physiological changes. Restless states develop when certain areas of the brain are damaged, with biochemical changes with increased production of neurotransmitters and hormones. The symptom is characteristic of a number of diseases, such as:

Depression.
The physiological basis of anxiety and depressive disorders is a disturbance in the metabolism of serotonin and dopamine. A deficiency of these compounds in the areas of the brain responsible for emotional reactions is manifested by a state of depression, causeless anxiety, and restlessness. The trigger for depression can be an external negative event or direct biochemical changes (hereditary, provoked by diseases).
Schizophrenia.
Restless thoughts are typical of the paranoid form of schizophrenia. They are caused by delusions and hallucinations: ideas of persecution, suggestions by voices of various violent actions. In addition, concern about one’s own condition is observed in patients in the initial stages of schizophrenia, when for no reason there is a feeling of disorientation in one’s own personality and environment.
Organic brain lesions.
Symptoms of anxiety are found in diseases affecting the functioning of the reticular formation, namely the activity of the locus coeruleus. Axons from this nucleus ascend to the upper layers of the cerebral cortex, the cerebellar cortex, the hippocampus and other structures involved in the formation of emotions. Damages to these parts of the brain are represented by vascular, traumatic, tumor, and neurodegenerative pathologies.
Endocrine diseases.
Hormonal changes are often accompanied by the development of psycho-emotional disorders. Mood disorders are varied and appear without cause. The most common depressive states are anxiety, worry, and fear. They are provoked by an increase in thyroid hormones and adrenal cortex. Observed in thyrotoxicosis, hypercortisolism syndrome, Itsenko-Cushing's disease.
Taking psychostimulants.
Psychostimulants, including narcotic drugs, have a stimulating effect on the nervous system. They enhance the transmission of neurosignals in various parts of the brain, causing restless thoughts, panic, and sometimes hallucinations, illusions, and psychosis. The most pronounced persistent symptoms of psychoemotional disorder are a consequence of long-term drug use.

The Danger of Feeling Anxious

With mental illnesses, anxiety gets out of control and can become inadequate—occur in situations where there is no real external danger. In such cases, anxiety itself becomes the cause and mechanism for the development of diseases: psychosomatic conditions, anxiety and depressive disorders, endogenous and organic diseases.

It is also necessary to know that during anxiety, the ability to think rationally and adequately analyze incoming information is reduced. This is why all psychologists recommend never making radical decisions at the “peak of anxiety.”

general characteristics

Anxiety is expressed as a vague, vague fear of possible future events.
Often it occurs for no reason, that is, in situations where there is no real danger. A person anticipates trouble, but does not know how to avoid or overcome it. Internal tension is partially reduced by physical activity, so restless people cannot sit still, walk around the room, bite their nails, aimlessly turn on the mobile phone screen several times, and perform other seemingly meaningless actions. Anticipating trouble forces you to concentrate on finding ways to solve or avoid future problems. Absent-mindedness and some detachment from reality appear. Thinking becomes selective: a person pays attention to events related to the disturbing situation and ignores everything else. In this way he confirms that his experiences are justified. Sometimes the feeling of anxiety intensifies to a state of anxiety, and disturbances in the perception of time, space, people, and actions develop.

Subjectively, anxiety feels like anxiety - a combination of fear, sadness, shame, and guilt for no reason. During the most acute experiences, physiological changes begin to be realized: rapid heartbeat, increased sweating, nausea, dizziness, headaches. If there is no understanding of the connection between anxiety and physical ailment, a person looks for the cause of discomfort by turning to somatic doctors - therapists, neurologists, cardiologists.

The thinking of a restless person is directed from the past to the future - an unfavorable or dangerous event is extracted from memories, and then something similar is predicted. In this case, the previous experience can be old or just happened, personal or someone else’s. For example, after a boss reprimands, discomfort increases every time you come to the workplace, since there is a possibility of meeting the manager. Similarly, anxiety may develop before flying on an airplane if you have previously watched a movie about a plane crash.

Speaking about anxiety without a reason, it is worth noting that, as a rule, there is a reason, but it is not realized or is assessed by others as insignificant. The key function of anxiety is to encourage actions that increase the likelihood of a favorable outcome of events and prevent potentially dangerous behavior. The biological basis of this experience is the mobilization of psychophysiological processes to overcome a possible traumatic situation. The negative effect of anxiety is a feeling of fear that interferes with effective functioning.

Treatment

The therapeutic process begins with a conversation with a doctor, during which the specialist talks about methods of treating the underlying disease and eliminating anxiety. Methods of symptomatic treatment are selected individually, taking into account the cause and severity of the emotional disturbance and the patient’s attitude towards it. For neurotic disorders, psychotherapy sessions are more appropriate; for secondary anxiety caused by a somatic illness, pharmacotherapy is more appropriate.

Relaxation techniques are effective in relieving anxiety

Psychotherapy

Feelings of anxiety can be effectively corrected using a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. At the first stage - the stage of mental elaboration - the psychotherapist discusses with the patient the causes of anxiety and situations that provoke emotional tension. He teaches how to identify physical discomfort and changes in thoughts when experiencing anxiety. At the stage of behavioral correction, the exposure method can be used, when the patient creates a vivid mental image of a dangerous situation, while simultaneously using relaxation and deep breathing techniques, visualizing a successful outcome of the event.

Severe forms of anxiety disorders, accompanied by pronounced autonomic reactions and feelings of fear, require a slightly different sequence of psychotherapy. First, the patient is taught self-control: restoring normal breathing, distraction and switching attention. When a person becomes able to independently avoid attacks of fear and panic, they move on to the stage of behavioral therapy.

Drug therapy

Medicines are prescribed for severe anxiety due to a mental disorder, neurological or endocrine disease. Drug correction allows you to control the symptom, even if it occurs without an obvious cause. Its advantage is its rapid action - improvement appears before the patient feels the positive effects of psychotherapy or other primary treatment. The use of tranquilizers – anti-anxiety drugs – is widespread. Additionally, antidepressants and herbal remedies with a calming and sedative effect are prescribed.

Relaxation techniques

Mild forms of anxiety can be eliminated through regular practice of physical and mental relaxation. Training in relaxation techniques is more successful in group classes that combine breathing exercises and auto-training. Patients develop muscle sense, master progressive relaxation, abdominal breathing, and applied relaxation. By controlling muscle tension and the breathing cycle, emotions and thoughts are corrected. Breathing yoga can be considered as an alternative to psychotherapeutic group techniques.