Unfortunately for those of us with anxiety disorders, it appears to be a lifelong trait. To some extent, it seems obvious.
For example: my friend M is an adventurer. She has climbed mountains, jumped out of perfectly good airplanes (with a parachute and skydive partner), and generally loves to try new things. M does NOT have an anxiety disorder.
I do.
My idea of an adventure is jaywalking. Trying new things means walking on the opposite side of the street from the subway station to my office. Newness and novelty are overwhelming to me. I like learning new things, true, but I also like routine. I like working the same hours every day, driving the same roads, taking the same trains.
In many ways, I wish I could be more like M. More...I don't know...fun. Constant anxiety can be hard to deal with and manage.
Which is why it helps to learn that I'm just wired differently, and that I can't change some of my innate temperament. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison have looked at the
persistence of anxious temperament in rhesus monkeys .*
From a
press release :
"The study looked at brain activity, anxious behaviour, and stress hormones in adolescent rhesus monkeys, which have long been used as a model to understand anxious temperament in human children. Anxious temperament is important because it is an early predictor of the later risk to develop anxiety, depression, and drug abuse related to self medicating. The researchers found that those individuals with the most anxious temperaments showed higher activity in the amygdala , a part of the brain that regulates emotion and triggers reactions to anxiety, such as the fight or flight response. These anxious monkeys had more metabolic activity in the amygdala in both secure and threatening situations.
"The brain machinery underlying the stress response seems to be always on in these individuals," said Kalin , "even in situations that others perceive as safe and secure." " Even a year and a half after the initial tests, the monkeys originally rated as anxious showed much higher stress responses in all types of situations than the non-anxious monkeys.
Am I destined to be anxious the rest of my life? Probably. I am working to live with it or at least live around it. But I'm trying not to blame myself for it and waste my energy trying to do a
preso -
chango and become an adventurer like my friend M.
*This journal (all of the ones published by the Public Library of Science) is a free, open-access research publication, which means that you can download the whole article for free.
For example: my friend M is an adventurer. She has climbed mountains, jumped out of perfectly good airplanes (with a parachute and skydive partner), and generally loves to try new things. M does NOT have an anxiety disorder.
I do.
My idea of an adventure is jaywalking. Trying new things means walking on the opposite side of the street from the subway station to my office. Newness and novelty are overwhelming to me. I like learning new things, true, but I also like routine. I like working the same hours every day, driving the same roads, taking the same trains.
In many ways, I wish I could be more like M. More...I don't know...fun. Constant anxiety can be hard to deal with and manage.
Which is why it helps to learn that I'm just wired differently, and that I can't change some of my innate temperament. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison have looked at the persistence of anxious temperament in rhesus monkeys .*
From a press release :
"The study looked at brain activity, anxious behaviour, and stress hormones in adolescent rhesus monkeys, which have long been used as a model to understand anxious temperament in human children. Anxious temperament is important because it is an early predictor of the later risk to develop anxiety, depression, and drug abuse related to self medicating. The researchers found that those individuals with the most anxious temperaments showed higher activity in the amygdala , a part of the brain that regulates emotion and triggers reactions to anxiety, such as the fight or flight response. These anxious monkeys had more metabolic activity in the amygdala in both secure and threatening situations.
"The brain machinery underlying the stress response seems to be always on in these individuals," said Kalin , "even in situations that others perceive as safe and secure." "
Even a year and a half after the initial tests, the monkeys originally rated as anxious showed much higher stress responses in all types of situations than the non-anxious monkeys.
Am I destined to be anxious the rest of my life? Probably. I am working to live with it or at least live around it. But I'm trying not to blame myself for it and waste my energy trying to do a preso - chango and become an adventurer like my friend M.
*This journal (all of the ones published by the Public Library of Science) is a free, open-access research publication, which means that you can download the whole article for free.