Student Life October 2019
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ANXIETY AND ME<br />
BY SHANNON MANN<br />
Some of you may be thinking of a lot of<br />
questions right now such as: What is anxiety?<br />
How do you know if you have it? What are<br />
the symptoms? And even more questions I’m<br />
sure. Let me answer all of those for you and<br />
make your knowledge a lot clearer.<br />
Anxiety is a mental health condition, when<br />
people have anxiety they frequently tend to<br />
worry or fear everyday situations. There are<br />
many types of anxiety disorder, but they’re<br />
all linked into the idea of episodes due to<br />
fear. This disorder often involves experiences<br />
of fear, which leads into panic attacks in<br />
minutes. Anxiety is often triggered by past<br />
childhood experiences, living situations,<br />
peer pressure and of course exams. Many<br />
teenagers get anxiety when it comes to their<br />
exams because of all the revising and the<br />
thought of themselves failing, this creates so<br />
much stress and worry that they overwhelm<br />
themselves, leading to anxiety.<br />
The symptoms of anxiety are:<br />
Feelings of panic and fear.<br />
Problems sleeping.<br />
Cold or sweaty hands or feet.<br />
Numbness.<br />
Your mouth becoming dry.<br />
Not being able to stay still and<br />
keep fidgeting.<br />
The shortness of breath.<br />
Anxiety can affect people on a day-to-day<br />
basis by changing their behaviour and<br />
moods, making themselves isolated from<br />
other people so they can be alone to deal with<br />
their thoughts, without the help from others<br />
around them, may be the case for some<br />
people with anxiety, others may be affected<br />
in different ways.<br />
Ways to help someone who has<br />
anxiety can be to:<br />
Try to distract them from what they<br />
are feeling.<br />
Focus on their feelings and understand<br />
how they may be feeling.<br />
Be patient with them and know what it may<br />
be like to be in their shoes.<br />
Have a laugh and put the stress<br />
behind them.<br />
I know that if you are someone close to<br />
a person who has anxiety it can be hard<br />
sometimes, as there is nothing that can<br />
get rid of it and they are stuck with it, but<br />
remember they are going through a lot more<br />
than we can imagine, all we can do is be<br />
there for them and help them through it.<br />
62 • OCTOBER <strong>2019</strong> • STUDENT LIFE
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