ANXIETY – A timeless disturbance

There is no living organism that is not subject to the process of stress. Stress is a mechanism of our body that in normal conditions activates functions that help us be on time in our various obligations or go up to the sidewalk when we hear the car etc. When this function deviates from the normal, stress can become tortuous.
A person who suffers from excessive stress can manifest it with a wide range of symptoms that start from simple nervousness and a feeling of anticipation and impatience, to a panic attack that manifests itself with physical and psychological symptoms. Therefore, many avoid buses and public transports because they feel difficult indoors. Others avoid crowded places or the queue at the supermarket checkout, clinics, elevators, planes, cemeteries, etc. The common denominator in all of the above behaviours is the feeling of anxiety.
Another manifestation of anxiety is its embodiment, i.e the patient is afraid for his health – life and is usually afraid of having a heart attack because his anxiety causes shortness of breath and tachycardia or he is afraid of the vascular stroke because he feels tightness in the head, in both cases people who express these fears are young and their health is very good nevertheless they often visit a Pathologist or Cardiologist to assure them that they are well.
The word “fear” has been mentioned many times in the above lines, which means that excessive stress is what is responsible for all the phobias that occur in people. “Phobia” is an irrational (excessive) fear that diverts the sufferer from the simple physiological assessment of situations in mental jumps that can temporarily relieve oneself but in the long run maintain the phobias or even increase them. No one is endangered by stress even though it feels difficult or unbearable. Excessive stress exists because we irrationally fixate and focus on it. Therefore, we are not afraid of our fears but we go against our avoidances, which produce stress.
Finally, anxiety is and will be a part of our lives. The goal is to be able to control it and keep it at operational levels. Of course, the most important thing to treat anxiety or any other anxiety disorder is to consult the right doctor or specialist, so that the correct diagnosis can be made and the correct cause and treatment can be found.

Spyros Tzeranis, Psychiatrist and Scientific Director of the clinic.