Treating Anxiety and Stress in Women
WOMEN HAVE FAITH: YOU CAN ELIMINATE ANXIETY FROM YOUR LIVES
If a person were to say they were not anxious, stressed, or worried, most people wouldn't believe them. One would think they must be one of those strange Buddhist monks who live in a faraway place far from bills, household chores, the 40-60 hour work week and the demands of everyday life. Who does not feel stress or anxious about paying bills, raising children, getting through school, finding a job, dealing with relationships? Anxiety, stress, and worry are commonly accepted as the “price” of adult womanhood. THIS IS A LIE, AN ILLUSION AND A FALSEHOOD!
Anxiety, stress, and worry are all one in the same. Anxiety is a natural phenomenon that is transitory: a heightened state to alert us to a call for action due to possible danger. Most modern people have developed a way of becoming stuck in this temporal storm and then labeling it an illness. Living a life filled with anxiety and stress is a modern invention we all would have been better off without. Anxiety has a great negative impact on physical health, one's emotions and psychological well-being. As anxiety starts the adrenaline, “fight or flight” response begins within the body. This “anxiety-distress” adrenaline wreaks havoc on the mind, emotions and body. The body's muscles tense and shut down as the mind races, emotions go haywire and natural states, such as digestion, run amok. One is left in fight or flight state that leads to poor choices in behaviors. This is why staying in a state of anxiety, stress, or worry can create or worsen many physical symptoms such as: abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhea or constipation of IBS, ulcers, nausea, vomiting, and reproductive problems due the body not being able to function in a natural, healthy manner. Anxiety is a problem women struggle with more than men! In 2008, Harvard Medical School found that two-thirds of all people with anxiety disorders are women. Why has our nation's anxiety been out of control and why does it seem to affect women more than men?
How women understand, prevent and eliminate anxiety needs to change. Anxiety does not have to become an acute or chronic illness of the mind or body. When one has an injury to their head, there is pain. The pain is not an illness or malfunction; it is a normal, healthy body function. The pain is bringing attention to the injury. Anxiety is the emotional attention getter to an emotional injury or true fears that need to be addressed in order to, at first, reduce and, then, eliminate anxiety. When the injuries or fears are not addressed, anxiety continues and becomes constant or a disorder. ANXIETY IS A GIANT WAKE UP CALL!
Why are women more prone to consistent high levels of acute and chronic anxiety? Why are women's minds, hearts, and bodies being attacked on a daily basis? Today, women are constantly dealing with how they feel about their appearance and their bodies viewed through a cultural myth of always not measuring up to an unrealistic illusion of beauty. Women constantly focus on what they eat while having limited time to make healthy meals. Women are still paid $0.77 to a man's dollar according to the White House findings. Women are given messages that having their emotions equals weakness. Women's anxiety alarm bells are ringing off the hook. Many women are incredibly anxious, trying to be everything for everyone, putting themselves last or not at all, and always coming up short and still not being enough. The pressures for women who are working mothers are literally never ending. Stay at home mothers are quite often undervalued and misunderstood; while they never getting to clock out and rest. THE SINGLE MOTHER DOES NOT STAND A CHANCE! The women who say they are married to their career are many times completely immersed in the “man's world”. Often, women feel they are have to act masculine while still working twice as hard as any man to prove their self-worth. When women feel they must “prove their worth”, they are often end up feeling like a failure as a wife, mother and worker. Some companies simply shy away from hiring women or do not give women the promotions, responsibilities, and money they deserve. With the many pitfalls and challenges on the path women must walk, there is hardly a moment when they can feel a sense of ease; they end up feeling acutely or chronically “dis-eased” that is being in undue stress, distress or ANXIETY. In many women's lives, they experience a constant state of anxiety; this is not malfunction or mental illness. The anxiety proves they are perfectly sane!
What are women to do then if anxiety is not a curable illness or an illness at all? What are women to do if they want to live an ANXIETY FREE LIFE? (YES! An anxiety free life can become a reality.) What if women choose to no longer accept the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual “costs” of falsely accepting ANXIETY as a fact of life? The first step is for women to become aware of what factors are causing their stress, worries and anxiety. They must work to find practical, reality-based ways to address their anxiety and eliminate anxiety. This quite often means not only changes in daily life behaviors, but, also, addressing deeper causes of anxiety (FEARS!). Harvard Medical School found that people who utilized counseling and therapy were 40% more successful at reducing anxiety then simply being in relaxation groups and much higher than doing nothing at all. Women need to have support and understanding; they need to know they are not alone in their struggles with anxiety being their own unique “hell”. Women need practical, reality-based knowledge, tools and skills to ELIMINIATE ANXIETY from their lives and not just cope with it or pay a huge “price” to their bodies, minds, hearts and relationships. Anxiety leads to not only to receiving less or no enjoyment from relationships and life, but to being isolated, alienated and shut down. DEPRESSION results from the inability to deal with and cope with anxiety. Severe depression or long standing depression can lead to despair and even suicidal feelings. Depression and despair start in anxiety. Groups and workshops are meaningful places to find compassion, support, understanding, and empathy. Women need tools and skills to recognize and eliminate causes of anxiety. Women also need to have a life of their own outside of their roles. With the numerous demands being made on women, a woman needs hobbies and passionate endeavors, social time, and quiet time without any demands. This presents many challenges in a woman's very busy, very demanding life!
Susan, age 38, is married with two children and was employed at a local company. She was on medication for anxiety and depression. She didn't feel she was a good wife or mother. She felt estranged from her husband and in undue conflict with her children. She had the beginnings of an ulcer and many physical maladies. Sometimes, she thought she was going crazy. She felt isolated and alone in her problems and issues. She had given up hope things would ever substantially improve. Susan attended a workshop that a friend recommended that led to her joining an ongoing group to address her issues. After several months, Susan was off medication completely. She understood the origins, causes and multiple factors in what kept her anxious then depressed then anxious in a vicious cycle. She felt she was able to relate to her husband and children in a more productive, meaningful way. She started to do more things for herself that made life more enjoyable.
Anxiety, stress, and worry do not have to be a constant. Women do not have live lives of on-going emotional pain. Through recognizing the truth about anxiety, eliminating anxiety and experiencing true growth, women can work to end the epidemic. There is concrete help for ANXIETY! No woman needs to accept an anxiety ridden life. There is hope! There is help!
Vanessa Jankowski is an Clinical Social Worker providing counseling and therapy specializing in women's work. She offers groups for women seeking to eliminate anxiety from their lives. www.ChangeandHealing.com, 630.712.6042