Some forms of anxiety are helpful and life-saving. 

It’s why we use seatbelts, stop at redlights, read warning labels on medicines and avoid poisons. It is why we obey signs that say “Don’t Feed The Monkeys” and “Watch Out For Snakes.” “Soft” anxiety can be the emotional glue that keeps things going if we are aware of it or not. 

It keeps you and me safe and aware and alive. 

Anxiety can be acute or situational or “time-limited.” 

This is when we deal with the threat – real or perceived – and our anxiety is immediately reduced. 

If a truck is speeding toward you or me, anxiety will spike and we jump out of the way (we have an involuntary reaction). The truck misses us and our levels of anxiety return to “normal” and we go on our way. 

Acute anxiety keeps us safe and aware and alive. 

Anxiety can also be chronic. 

This is when we worry about having nothing to worry about. It’s the slow-cooking back-drop of worry about finance or health or the future. It is when we worry about our adult or young children or about another World War. 

It’s chronic anxiety that can give rise to symptomatic behavior and lead to physical ill health. Chronic anxiety drowns thinking, distorts perception, messes with our hearing and can be completely debilitating.

People with chronic anxiety would do well to seek professional help.