ANXIETY

What is Anxiety?
Just as it is difficult to describe other thrills or excitements, describing anxiety is a
difficult task. Anxiety can be contained in one or several of these excitement situations:
sadness, distress, and fear, the feeling of failure, helplessness, uncertainty and trial.
Some psychologists say there are three important differences between fear and
anxiety:
(1) Source. Exactly like in the example of “I’m afraid of bees”, we know the reason, the
source of our fear but the source of anxiety is always unknown.
(2) Violence: A fear is more violent than anxiety
(3) Duration/Length: Fear is less long but the anxiety lasts much longer.
Psychologists characterized and defined the physiological phenomena occurring and
the ones that may be observed during a period of anxiety by analyzing the similarities
between fear and anxiety. Their claim is supported by experimental observations. That’s why
psychologists use physiological symptoms or changes such as heartbeat, blood pressure,
the blood chemical composition, Galvanic Skin Response and breathing exhalation rate in
the evaluation of anxiety.

Causes of anxiety
The kind of environment which could create a certain type of anxiety may differ from one
culture to another. But it is possible to make some generalizations for all the societies. These
generalizations specify the commonalities between the environments causing the feeling of
anxiety.
(1) The withdrawal of support: Fatih’s mother, father, brother, table at home, working
desk, neighbors, friends or his domestic dog and cat are all a part of his life, but suddenly
he finds himself in a foreign city, a foreign house, and he’s therefore away from his family,
friend, relatives and acquaintances. There isn’t any more none of the support he previously
had or he got used to until now. People get anxious when their habitual closest environment
disappear this way.
(2) Excepting a negative result: We are usually anxious when we’re excepting negative
situations such as the following to arise: when we sit for an exam with an insufficient
preparation or waiting for a traffic hearing at the court to sentence us with a traffic ticket.

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(3) Internal contradictions: We fee stress which is a kind of anxiety when we face
unexpected results with something we believed in or considered important. Cognitive
paradox is an important source of motive and thrill. Until a way to get rid of the contradiction
is found we feel somehow anxious. For example, if someone who believe that humanity is
living in a world that will surely someday be destroyed by the development of nuclear
weapons, is obliged to work in a lab that produce these kinds of weapons he will constantly
live in a tense and anxious state of mind.
(4) Uncertainty: Being unable to know what is going to happen in the future is one of the
obvious main causes of anxiety in people. Being aware of the negative events that will
happen in a near future is preferred to being completely ignorant of the upcoming events.
The symptoms of Fear and Tension
A list specifying the possible symptoms that may be observed in anxious and nervous
people are given below. If you or a neighbor of yours have these symptoms you can try to
use one of the conscious resolution techniques. However, what you’ve got to realize is that
those symptoms may also be signs of physical diseases; that’s why when they are observed
for a long period of time in someone and that it influences their daily life activities it’s better to
get examined by a doctor.
* Shortness of breath
* Stomach pain
* Sweating
* Diarrhea or constipation
* Irregularity in breathing
* Has not overreact
* Intermittent breathing
* Chills
* Tension
* Coldness of the fingers and toes
* Heart palpitations
* Constant fatigue
* Suddenly angry
* Continuous headache
* Backache
* Tension in neck muscles

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Ways to handle fear and tension
We can categorize the techniques of coping from anxiety and tension in two main groups: the
technique that may be applied when conscious and the ones that may be used
unconsciously. The technique unconsciously is called defense mechanisms. Someone
using the defense mechanisms isn’t even aware of the fact he’s using a technique to reduce
anxiety and tension. The techniques we consciously use include behaviors we have
achieved as a result of learning.
The Self-hypnosis technique- one the conscious ways of coping
Holland and Tarlow (1980) proved anxiety and tension could be eliminated when a human
being self-hypnotizes himself and therefore gets rid of his undesired thoughts and feelings
and enters a state of thinking and perception. These are the steps they proposed to achieve
the technique:
(1) Sit on a comfortable chair in a position that allows you to keep your back steep or
perpendicular to it. Put the chair 1.5 or 3 meters away from an empty wall. Put a scotch or
mark with pin a point located 30 cm higher than your eyes’ alignment on the wall.
(2) Look straight forward to the point on the wall and without hurrying up start taking a calm
breath. In each breathe try to count slowly backwards from 10 to 0.
(3) When you say a number continue watching the point on the wall and meanwhile imagine
that your hands and arms are becoming heavier and heavier and you can’t move them
anymore.
(4) Now start thinking about the fact it’s getting harder to keep your eyes open because your
eyelids are getting heavier. You’re eyelids are closing as if there was a heavy load attached
to them, it’s becoming impossible to keep your eyes open. Now close your eyes (perhaps at
that very moment your eyelids close up on their own).
(5) Exactly like in the 2 nd step start counting again from 10 to 0 and at the pronunciation of
each number take a calm and reposing breath. Only think about your breathe and nothing
else. Think about your breathe as if it was a smoke coming out of a boiling kettle and imagine
you’re actually seeing the smoke entering your noses, going to your lungs and then getting
out of your noses.
(6) Count as you’re breathing and when you reach as certain number feel like you plunge
yourself in a warm bathtub. Imagine how the warm water is refreshing your skin. Just
completely slack and try to relax, say to yourself “relax, let your whole get loose”. Keep your
body in a condition of complete immersion and relaxation, try to keep that feeling last as long

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as possible. Let thoughts start coming to your mind, then start opening slowly your eyes from
the moment you start making plans about your daily problems and then after staying in that
state of opened eyes for a while get up and start your daily activities.

The technique of grade relaxation

This technique was inspirited by a 24 steps method from Holland and Tarlow (1980).
For more information please refer to the Baltaş’ published works (Baltaş and Baltaş,
1986, Ways of coping from fear). Choose a comfortable area for yourself. Lie on a
carpet or a cushion in a silent room or if possible a room inside of which nobody
wouldn’t disturb you for at least 30 minutes.
(1) Squeeze your right fist, keep it as if you were grasping something and then
stretch it. Pay attention the feeling you had when your hand’s muscles were tight and
then you released them.
(2) Slowly squeeze your fist as you did before and after a while slowly stretch it. Once
again, keep your mind focus on your muscles and observe how different you feel at
the very moment you’re tend and then you releases your hands.
(3) Now squeeze your left fist, keep it squeezed for a moment and then stretch it.
(4) Slowly squeeze your left fist and release it after staying like that for a while.
(5) Stretch your biceps from both of your arms to your fingers as if you were carrying
a heavy load, increase gradually that tension and then completely release yourself.
(6) Slowly repeat the 5 th step.
(7) Put your arms down, put the back of your hands on your legs and push arms
backwards with a constantly increasing strength. Release everything and then pay
attention to the muscles located in the back of your arms.
(8) Now put your arms by your body sides and imagine that the whole tension is
flowing from your arms to outside.
(9) By making a pressure on your facial muscles make your forehead tensed (just frown).
(10) Keep the muscles in your forehead squeezed and release them after a while.
(11) Close intensively your eyelids and keep them squeezed for a moment. After a
moment stretch your eyelids without opening your eyes. Pay attention to the
difference between feelings you had when your eyelids and the muscles near your
eyes were so tense.
(12) Grit your teeth in order to make your chin and temporal region very tight. After a
moment ease off/slacken your chin and keep your mouth half opened.
(13) To feel your neck muscles throw your head backwards and tighten the muscles
in the back of your neck very well, while your muscles are still tense, turn your head
first to your right side and to your left and then lean it to your front side. After keeping
muscles tight, slacken them.
(14) Raise your shoulders and tighten the muscles between your shoulders and your
neck, after keeping them like that for a while slacken yourself and relax.
(15) Release your shoulders and then your arms, your neck’s nape, your neck and
your chin, your forehead and eyelids and relax. Imagine that your fatigue is getting
out of your body, from the shoulders to the bottom of your arms and flows from your
fingers’ extremity to the outside of your body. You should notice that your tension is
decreasing gradually.
(16) Take deep breathes and pay attention to the tension that occurs in your chest.
Hold your breath and notice the tension inside your chest. Now relax and breathe
out.
(17) Now start breathing slowly and normally. Imagine your body relaxing each time
you breathe in and out. Now continue breathing and feel the progressive
disappearance of the sensation of tiredness in the other parts of your body.
(18) Now tighten your belly muscles and keep them tense for a while. Slacken tem
and feel the great difference between when they were contracted and when you
stretch them.
(19) Contract the two muscles by your spine’s sides. Feel the sensation of tension

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when this part contracted as the other body parts are free. Release those muscles
after a while and feel the difference.
(20) Continue breathing in and out and slacken each and every contracted muscle in
the upper part of your body. Try to relax until no muscle of your whole body isn’t
contracted anymore.
(21) Now contract well muscles in your hips and your legs and release them after a
while. Pay attention the great difference between the state of tension/contraction and
relaxation of those muscles.
(22) Without raising your ankle, increase the tension in the calf of your leg by raising
your toes. Play with your toes and increase the tension inside you’re the muscles and
pay attention to the feeling. Put back your ankle to its normal position, relax and then
notice the difference.
(23) Without raising your ankles put your toes back and tighten up the muscles in
front of the calf of legs’ region. Release the tension and just feel the difference.
(24) Now in your whole body relax all your muscles starting from the head to the toes.
Now lie down with your head, forehead, eyelids, chin, neck and nape, shoulders,
arms, chest, belly, hip, legs, calf of the leg and foot’s muscles completely relax.
Continue taking regular breathes. Feel the muscle tension in your legs and arms
decrease. Lie down for 5 to 10 minutes in that relax position.
The most important thing here is to remember the difference between when your
muscles are contracted and when you slacken them. After doing this exercise for a
couple of times, your muscles start responding at once to all your mentally given
orders. So it becomes possible for you to handle or to prevent situations such as
when someday in the future your muscles are tense and your respiration is irregular.
If the technique of contraction and relaxation explained above is applied every
day for 15-20 minutes after coming back from work, fear and tension are reduced
dramatically. With time your body will get used to that technique and it’ll be possible
for you to rest deeper.
For those who want to get rid of their daily fear and tension it is advised they make
use of this technique or similar ones.