Anxiety and Fear: Concepts

Two strong reactions to the pandemic you might be experiencing are fear and anxiety. COVID-19 can be a very scary thing to some people, especially as the pandemic unravels. To some, the unpredictable-ness of how the pandemic will progress can incite fear and protecting one's health and loved one's health can cause extreme anxiety. The consequences of the pandemic may also indirectly cause fear and anxiety as school and work conditions, family/social life, and daily routines change and continue to change with the course of the crisis. How can we manage these reactions and balance them out? First, the key to managing these are understanding these reactions. 

First, it's best to think about what kinds of reactions or symptoms anxiety-provoking situations cause. 

Take a look at this graphic:

As we can see, there are several counterparts to anxiety.

On one hand, we have the emotional aspect. We feel negative emotions: fear, anger, and/or sadness. Something else that may happen are physiological symotoms: shortness of breath, pounding heart, sweat, nausea, and/or numbness. Another is cognitive: less rational thoughts, distorted thoughts based on fear, and/or worries about the panic itself. In turn, there is the behavior aspect as well: you might choose to avoid situations that might cause anxiety, find security behaviors to mask or distract from the anxiety, or feel debilitated from the anxiety and not get anything done. 

As you can see in the diagram, all of these components can be individual, but also intermittent to one another like a cycle. One aspect can affect another, vice versa. Just like the Cognitive Triangle, we can attack one symptom and it can help alleviate or change the others to manage your anxiety.