 Hello and welcome back. Today we're talking about anxiety and in particular three common myths and misconceptions about anxiety that I hear all the time so I thought I'd take a few minutes just to set the record straight. Number one is that anxiety is always bad. This isn't true. So anxiety and the physiological response, the kind of anxious response is something that is inbuilt to us and has been for many many many years in order to keep us safe but the thing is that we've evolved and changed and the response that we might have needed in order to run away from danger historically isn't necessarily really helpful in our day-to-day lives. So if I need to run away from a tiger fantastic if I am anxious because I have 120 unread emails in my inbox and that's making my heart pound in my palm palm sweat not so helpful. And actually sometimes anxiety and those kind of anxious thoughts and feelings are something that can help us to achieve when we need to that's what gets us across the finish line fast in the race that's what makes us able to concentrate and focus in for like the three hours of an exam I mean that's not a normal thing to be able to do but again anxiety and adrenaline can help drive us through this situation so sometimes it's a good thing sometimes it helps our performance and sometimes it can keep us safe maybe you really did need to run away from something one time and that kind of physiological anxious response will be what helped you that time. Number two anxiety isn't a real illness. Anxiety absolutely is a real illness now the difficulty here is the kind of difference between the common vernacular of feeling anxious and being a bit anxious and then the anxiety disorders now the DSM-5 which is the like diagnostic manual of mental issues mental health issues has many different categories of anxiety disorders in there and they are absolutely real issues now this is when your anxiety is essentially having a very big impact on your day-to-day life it's stopping you doing the things you would normally do and it's going on for a period of days weeks months not just you know a little bit here and there this is when it's having a really significant impact on your life basically it can take many different forms and it can be hugely hugely debilitating living with you know various different anxiety disorders can have a really huge impact on on people's lives many people who struggle with anxiety function really highly and are able to appear like they're managing really well but hugely that can take a huge toll often so anxiety is a real illness there are a whole range of anxiety disorders however the the way that we use the word anxiety on a kind of day-to-day basis that's not necessarily something that we should be worried about and all of us will experience some feelings of anxiety from time to time and that's completely normal but it's when it's really kind of taking over our lives that becomes an issue number three is the idea that some people are just kind of anxious personality types and there's nothing that we can do about that and certainly some people are more predisposed to anxiety disorders than others however anxiety disorders are one of the more treatable mental health issues so there's lots and lots that can be done both in terms of medication and in terms of talking therapy so in particular the use of cognitive behavioral therapy is really helpful for people with many different types of anxiety disorder that helps us to address our faulty thinking patterns and helps us to change our behavior in response to those different thoughts and feelings there are other kinds of interventions as well that can support depending on the type of anxiety so for example phobias can be treated really effectively by different kinds of exposure therapy for example so anxiety might be something that some people are more prone to than others and some people might always be living with some degree of anxiety but there are different things we can do in order to enable us to cope and manage with anxiety if it does affect us and many types of anxiety are absolutely treatable or might resolve as things change in our life so there we go three common myths and misconceptions about anxiety I hope that this helped you to think a little bit and if you have any thoughts and ideas on this too then please do leave a comment down below I'd love to hear what you have to say thank you bye bye