The Mayo Clinic Anxiety Checklist
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/31
I want to talk to you today about anxiety.
Anxiety can be a restrictor of life quality and general wellbeing. The sense of anxiousness and unwarranted concern through stress can take its toll on mental and physical health.
The Mayo Clinic, of the and often rated the foremost medical clinic in the world, talked about anxiety and the feeling of anxious. Imagine the times when you are in traffic, waiting for the light, or caught in the deep of an uncomfortable social situation. No one wants those, normally.
Some people feel this most or all the time. They are anxious, nervous, concerned but not for a specific reason. They feel generally anxious. They have what is quite literally called generalized anxiety disorder.
It is different than a momentary blip in the anxiety radar. Or a sense of urgency about things for a tad, especially around an assignment due or a big job initiative or promotion. This generalized anxiety disorder can develop at most ages. That means childhood and adulthood where this would become a problem.
Some people have obsessive compulsive disorder. Others have major depressive disorder, still others have this generalized anxiety disorder. It does not make the person good or bad, but does make daily living potentially a little or a lot more difficult for the person to manage it.
Since this, like the others, can be a long-term condition, it can be a challenge for the long haul for the person with the disorder. Some preliminary things that have helped those with it: psychotherapy and medications.
However, you may need to look into the signs of the disorder too. The Mayo Clinic recommends looking at the following signs:
- Persistent worrying or anxiety about a number of areas that are out of proportion to the impact of the events
- Overthinking plans and solutions to all possible worst-case outcomes
- Perceiving situations and events as threatening, even when they aren’t
- Difficulty handling uncertainty
- Indecisiveness and fear of making the wrong decision
- Inability to set aside or let go of a worry
- Inability to relax, feeling restless, and feeling keyed up or on edge
- Difficulty concentrating, or the feeling that your mind “goes blank”
If you are concerned about a friend or family member, I would recommend looking at or asking about the physical symptoms. This can include fatigue or difficult sleeping. Ask if they have muscle tension or even aches in their muscles, they may have a certain trembling or twitchiness to them.
They may also have developed a general nervousness, sweatiness, and nausea along with it. If you know them really well, they may tell about issues with diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome or irritability in general.
The worries, the psychological manifestations, may be gone, but the individual may have anxiousness left in them. It can cause troubles for the individual in work and in social life. The worries, the things located and pinpointed as conscious concerns, can emerge at times.
For the younger population, and so more advice for aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents, the child or teenager may have issues with performance in school and in sports due to the anxiety. They can have excessive worries about safety of a family member, punctuality, and potential catastrophic events involving earthquakes or nuclear catastrophe, and so on.
One checklist in terms of the excessive worry comes from the article:
- Feel overly anxious to fit in
- Be a perfectionist
- Redo tasks because they aren’t perfect the first time
- Spend excessive time doing homework
- Lack confidence
- Strive for approval
- Require a lot of reassurance about performance
- Have frequent stomachaches or other physical complaints
- Avoid going to school or avoid social situations
This can lead to some questions for doctors. If the anxiety is moderate as a disorder, then the this can interfere with some of the work and friend environment and relations for you. If you are feeling even depressed or irritable, this is important to keep an eye out for, especially if you have other comorbid or co-occurring medical disorders.
If you are having trouble at the extreme end with suicidal thoughts, then you should seek emergency treatment immediately.
Try to catch the issue early to be able to cope earlier, before the more significant issues can, potentially, rear their heads – and good luck, blessings, or whatever works for you.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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