The World Mental Health Report released by the World Health Organization shows that the global incidence of anxiety and depression increased by more than 25% in the first year of the pandemic alone.

After the epidemic, various psychological problems such as anxiety disorder, depression , obsessive-compulsive disorder , phobia, personality disorder, etc. have erupted a lot of psychological problems . The World Mental Health Report released by the World Health Organization shows that in the first year of the pandemic, the global incidence of anxiety and depression increased by more than 25%. Among the psychological problems of , the fastest rise of is anxiety disorder.

Why do people suffer from anxiety?

Why do people suffer from anxiety? Anxiety is an amplification of future risks . Due to the epidemic and economic deterioration, the uncertainty in the future has intensified and amplified, making many people feel that the degree of uncontrollable future has increased. So anxiety disorder breaks out.

Human nature is inherently sensitive to bad news, and is prone to unknown things to think about the bad things. This is also called the black box effect. For example, if your husband doesn’t come home late after get off work, few people think that he is praised by his boss because of his excellent performance. Most people think of bad things.

Why do humans have a black box effect? Because our psychological response mechanism is formed by adapting to the environment over tens of thousands of years of evolution. In primitive society for tens of thousands of years, the dangers encountered by humans were mainly wild animals. is more likely to survive for risk-sensitive and cautious people. Therefore, most of the genes we have survived are pessimism.

The difference between anxiety and anxiety

Many people feel that anxiety is just a temporary worry caused by stress, but anxiety and anxiety are different. Anxiety Response To the reality of risk is exaggerated . For example, you encounter a goat, but you are as scared as if you encounter a leopard ; and emotional experience is seriously negative , and causes life discomfort .

For example, if a graduate student is criticized by his or her tutor for doing a graduation thesis, he or she may not be able to graduate. Then I think of not finding a job, and I think of being disliked by my girlfriend, and considering that I can’t get married, my parents are dissatisfied, I can’t buy a house, and I can’t have children. In short, the more I think about it, the more I feel anxious....

How to identify myself as having an anxiety disorder?

Although there is a self-evaluation scale with anxiety disorders, the accuracy of the scale is not high. It can be judged based on the symptoms of anxiety disorder. The three main symptoms of anxiety disorder are:

1. Emotion: a painful emotional experience that is inconsistent with the situation . The reality is not that scary, but not consistent with the situation.
2. muscle tension;
3. automatic nerve disorder , manifested as sweating, dilated pupils, frequent urination , dry mouth , etc.

Anxiety disorders include square phobia, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, , generalized anxiety disorder, hypochondriasis, etc. Among them, generalized anxiety disorder is the most common, with about 5% of the population affected by it at some point in their lives. The symptoms are as follows:

• is overly worried about one or more aspects of life;
• muscle tension (such as tension headache );
• sympathetic nervous system characteristics of hyperactiveness (such as heavy head, dry mouth, palpitations );
• overawait (such as feeling nervous and difficult to concentrate);
• manifestations of excessive awakening (alert) (such as feeling nervous and difficult to concentrate); 4
• respiratory symptoms (such as tight chest sensation, excessive breathing);
• urinary and reproductive system symptoms: (such as frequent urination, urgency);
• intestinal irritation and other gastrointestinal symptoms (such as diarrhea);
• insomnia (difficulty falling asleep and easy to wake up in the middle); daytime sleepiness;
• alcohol and/or substance abuse.

Other situations that are easy to ignore: Some anxiety symptoms are caused by other diseases; whether drugs or foods that may cause anxiety are used. The substances or drugs that can cause anxiety include: caffeine , sympathomimetics, antiemetics, antipsychotics, gastrointestinal motility, and alcohol , etc.; some drugs will experience anxiety reactions when withdrawing medication, such as sedative hypnosis drugs. Quitting smoking and drinking often leads to anxiety.

Sensitive to bad news and prone to anxiety, this psychological mechanism in primitive society helped us survive in the jungle of wild beasts. But the collective subconscious of is no longer suitable for modern society. Modern society optimism and activism often have more opportunities. Therefore, after the changes in the external environment, adjusting the unfit side of our nature may be a better way to adapt to modern society.