Dear Daniel:

Anxiety, ongoing fear without present and imminent danger, is the human condition. Anxiety shows itself in so many ways that there are I am guessing hundreds of diagnoses, hundreds of collections of symptoms so to organize types of anxieties in groups. The group without a particular focus of the fear (spiders, open spaces, closed spaces, etc.) is “generalized anxiety disorder”.

Fear is the most powerful emotion we have, the most distressing. It is so because when an animal is in a present and imminent danger, such as a predator fast approaching, it needs to run away or  fight as soon as possible, immediately, with all its strength, all that it got. This is the function of the emotion of fear: to make the animal feel so bad, that it has to  do something and fast.

This is why fear feels so distressing, why it is the most distressing of all emotions.

There are plenty of ways to reduce and regulate fear, from guided meditations, to a routine of aerobic exercise, from mindful yoga to the slow motion practice of tai chi, saunas and hot baths, or lying under the sun, the fear melting in the heat and so forth. Insight into a person’s childhood is very helpful, and quality psychotherapy is a good idea. Did you attend therapy?

anita