Anxiety

Everyone gets anxious sometimes. It's what we feel when we're frightened of something, such as exams. That feeling of your heart beating faster and breathing speeding up as you think of what you have to do. This is normal and a little anxiety is actually good for us as it gets us motivated and helps us to avoid dangerous situations.

But when does anxiety become a problem?

• If you get this feeling a lot of the time
• If you feel cut off from reality
• When you feel anxious about things that other people don't worry about
• You avoid situations that make you anxious
• You feel tired, irritable and/or forgetful
• You have trouble concentrating and sleeping

If you think that this sounds like you, you could be suffering from too much anxiety and this can take over your life. This could be triggered from a past event that's been difficult, like illness or death of a loved one.

You can learn to deal with your anxiety, try doing these:

• Try breathing deeply when you feel anxious
• Do a detox - no more caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes or drugs
• Do some exercise
• Try to focus on the positive things in your life like what you're good at
• Understand that worrying gets us nowhere and things are never usually as bad as we imagine

And finally...

Talk to someone about how you're feeling such as a counsellor. Ask you GP about ones in your area. Counsellors are fantastic at explaining why we're feeling the way we do and making us feel better.