Absolutely anyone is vulnerable to suffering from anxiety at some point in their life. Although, unfortunately, for many, this is not something sporadic or punctual, but a part of their life that they are forced to deal with every day. What is anxiety? This is broadly defined as a feeling of restlessness or fear, which causes a feeling of tension and physiological responses, such as palpitations. It is a completely natural reaction of the body to a situation that causes a high level of stress in a person.
However, it is necessary to differentiate between cases that suffer from anxiety episodes, within what could be considered normal, and those that go further and find themselves facing something more serious: an anxiety disorder. Although both situations start from the same base, the diagnosis, complications, and impact on people's lives differ greatly from one to the other.
The psychologist Teresa Pérez-Espinosa makes a first differentiation between conventional anxiety and anxiety disorder, defining the former as “useful anxiety”. That is, the one that helps people to function more efficiently in their day to day, since no, anxiety is not essentially something negative. What the body does when generating this state is to put itself on alert, in order to focus the senses on achieving the objective that lies ahead, for example, an exam or a job interview. Therefore, it is not something negative, but a "completely necessary and stimulating" tool.
The case of anxiety disorder is very different, because the effect of one and the other is just the opposite. Teresa Pérez-Espinosa explains that pathological anxiety, unlike normal anxiety, prevents people from behaving as they would like. “It blocks us and paralyzes us,” she says. Not only that, this diagnosis, since it is a mental health problem, could lead to another series of pathologies related to anxiety or even depressive states. The specialist lists a series of differences between one and the other.
