What to do when you go over the limit
by CINZIA LUCCHELLI
Anxiety is part of us. And we need it. Without anxiety we would have become extinct: as predators and prey, without an element of alarm to activate flight and attack behavior, we would not have survived. In the right measure it pushes us to stay alert and achieve goals. An interrogation, a work deadline, a speech in public. But when it is excessive it can become pervasive and have debilitating consequences. The good news, for those who are more vulnerable, is that as the brain learns to be anxious, it can also learn not to be. Change isn’t easy, but it’s possible: the brain is adaptable.
The word anxiety comes from the Latin to be angry which means to squeeze, suffocate, oppress. Restlessness, anguish, worry, apprehension, breathlessness, trepidation. If the Inuit have many words for snow, we have many to express this condition. More or less scientifically appropriate, they tell us how much anxiety is meaningful to us.
Subscribe to read too
Sources
“Anxiety” by Jospeh LeDoux (Raffaello Cortina Publisher)
Luigia Trabace Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Foggia
Massimo Pasquini Professor of Psychiatry at La Sapienza, University of Rome
Riccardo Williams psychoanalyst and professor of Dynamic Psychology at Sapienza University of Rome
Delia Cantu neuropsychomotor specialist, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, Health anthropology
A production
Editorial supervision Annalisa D’Aprile
Graphics Eva Csuthi (Accenture MediaTech), Development Angel Patricio Susanna (Accenture MediaTech)