The Nervous Trinity and Dealing with It

Anxiety, fear and stress make the nervous trinity for a human being playing havoc with his/her life. Most of the time, even one is enough for jeopardizing normal functioning of the person, but when the three are present together, the havoc is almost certain.

It all begins with an anxiety of getting a thing done or achieving something. In the anxiety, the real course of action needed for the achievement is missed, making the desired achievement becomes almost impossible. An anticipated possibility of a failure or a danger causes fear to develop, making the person more nervous and ineffective. It is noteworthy here that a fear is always a result of a bad anticipation, not the finality of a result, making it unwarranted and avoidable. But the anxiety reinforces it in the mind of the person.

The third member of the trinity is the stress, often caused by uncertainties of various kinds – of capabilities, of functioning, of results, etc. coupled with a sense of insecurity. Thus, anxiety and fear also contribute to develop stress. These three factors are so akin to each other, in many cases, it becomes impossible to earmark any particular one. The three reinforce each other, and for the person, once in grip of these, it becomes impossible to come out without an external assistance and guidance.  

Anxiety is a cognitive problem about the future, making the anxious persons to anticipate threats, even unwarranted. Fear involves amygdala of the brain which evaluates potential threats and triggers emotional responses like freezing or fleeing. Stress affects body’s responses such as feeling overwhelmed and may show up as worries, depression, etc. and may also result into moodiness, overeating, restlessness, etc.

The solution lies not in simply worrying but accepting bad things to happen as strides of life and facing them boldly. Indeed such experiences make us matured to face the world in a better-equipped way than ever before

As the trinity attack begins with anxiety, so the easiest way to defend is to not allowing anxiety to take us over. Misfortunes have been happening all the times, to all the people and they had been fighting them out with courage. Now, when we have developed more resources and techniques as our aides, it has become easier. For example, for a problem of flat tyre in the vehicle we are moving, we have a spare wheel to our rescue. Similar alternate ways may be kept reserve to wipe off any possibility of an anxiety, fear or stress.