Anxious times

Have only recently come to understand the difference between being anxious and suffering from anxiety.

Being anxious is being rationally worried about something for a fixed period of time. On a day of high temperatures and strong winds I am anxious about bush fires. When the weather changes to a cool wet day I stop being anxious. I am anxious about sitting a tough exam. I will remain anxious until I get the results (although, depending upon the result I might have a new thing to be anxious about!).

Anxiety is a constant physiological state which continues (though with greater or lesser intensity) irrespective of rational things to be anxious about (though some things, rational or irrational, can cause an increase in intensity). Permanent anxiety comes about, I guess, after a prolonged period of being constantly, or at least very frequently, anxious. Such a period could come about during a very stressful period, for example soldiers in a war, or as a result of being artificially made to feel anxious. A work supervisor, for example, could induce anxiety in a worker by frequently being critical of work produced. Another important element would be to make the criticism both inconsistent (work which was acceptable one day being unacceptable another) and unpredictable (times of inspection being random).

So, a useful element in psychological warfare perhaps. You could induce anxiety in a prisoner, and then either reward them for good behaviour by reducing the number of times you caused them to be anxious, or punish them by greatly increasing the number of times you made them anxious.

Being rationally anxious has useful physiological changes – increased adrenalin perhaps, increased heartbeat, fast breathing – but these disappear once the cause is removed or resolved. Anxiety is a whole body state. The best analogy I can think of is your body reaction just as a dose of flu is beginning. Or the reaction of your body, while undergoing a CT scan (itself a rational cause of anxiety!), when they inject the chemical into your blood. You suddenly become aware of a sensation all over your body. Deep in your very core of being. Anxiety is like that.