Anxiety disorders are one of the most common mental health conditions which affects around 30% of us at some point during our lives. But why do so many of us experience anxiety? And how can we overcome it when it starts to affect our day-to-day living?

As humans, we have evolved to protect ourselves. and one of the ways we do that is through the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ reaction. If our brain perceives a threat, it releases a variety of hormones to prepare us to run away, fight, or freeze. These hormones include adrenaline and cortisol, and they make us feel more vigilant of what’s happening. They also increase our heart rate, so blood is sent where it’s needed the most when perceive an attack.

For some of us though the system gets activated when there is no physical danger present, thus increasing the level of anxiety. We then end up internalising the feelings and find ourselves with no idea how to make it stop. Anxiety therefore turns into a mental health problem which starts to adversely affect our daily life. You may be then very easily triggered, or find you have a level of anxiety constantly throughout the day.