Your Happiness Factor

div style="line-height: 16.8pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">   People under stress or suffering from phobias sometimes experience moments of sudden and intense anxiety. This can leave you shaking, feeling confused or disorientated, with rapid heartbeats, a dry mouth, sweating, dizziness and, sometimes, chest pain. Chest pains should always be checked out with your doctor immediately, just to make sure it is nothing more serious. The symptoms usually peak within 10 minutes. But they can last anything between five minutes and half an hour. If you know something triggers a panic attack, it is best to avoid it and seek help from a physician or counsellor.   But Professor Paul Salkovskis, a psychologist at  King’s College, London , says it's important not to let your fear of panic attacks control you. “Panic attacks always pass and the symptoms are not a sign of anything harmful happening,” he says. “It’s important not to restrict...

   Generalized anxiety is a relatively common problem, affecting 3-4% of the population.  It turns daily life into a state of worry, anxiety, and fear. Over thinking and dwelling on the "what ifs" characterize generalized anxiety. As a result, you feel there’s no way out of the vicious cycle of anxiety and worry, and you can then become depressed about life and the state of anxiety you find yourself in. Generalized anxiety usually does not cause people to avoid situations, and it isn’t having a "panic attack. It’s the   thinking, thinking, thinking, dwelling, dwelling, ruminating, ruminating, and inability to shut the mind off that interferes with your ability to deal with life. Quite often, other thoughts seem almost non-existent because the anxious feelings are so dominant. Feelings of worry, dread, lack of energy, and a loss of interest in life! Many times there is no "trigger" or "cause" for these feelings and you realize these feelings ...

   The next few posts here are going to deal with anxiety and stress - f irst - anxiety!  Anxiety is the feeling of fear we all experience when faced with a threatening or difficult situation. It helps us to avoid dangerous situations, makes us alert and motivates us to deal with problems.   It can save our lives by making us run away from danger. We all feel anxious sometimes.  It is normal.  But for some of us – about one in ten – anxiety becomes a problem.  It gets in the way of living the life we would choose.   It can turn into panic attacks and phobias. Some of us just seem to be born more anxious than others. Research suggests these problems can be inherited through our genes. But even someone who doesn't naturally worry can, under enough pressure, become uncomfortably  anxious. This video introduces us to the five  anxiety disorders and why they develop. If you have any thought...