THE GUISES OF MENTAL PROBLEMS - ANXIETY stimulates health problems

THE GUISES OF MENTAL PROBLEMS 

MENTAL AND emotional problems can have obvious enough manifestations-in an individual's behavior, feelings, outlook on life. The tense and anxious person or the depressed and apathetic person may wear his inner state, so to speak, "on his sleeve." But an anxiety or depressive state, whether or not obvious to others, may take a physical as well as emotional toll. 

And sometimes, in fact often, the physical problems may loom so large to the sufferer that he may consider them his whole burden and tend to dismiss his emotional state, not even mentioning the latter when he consults a physician. This can make it difficult for the physician to help. If you understand well the many guises that emotional disturbances can take, you will be better able to obtain help if any develop, and you may be better able to prevent their development.

 ANXIETY

This is often called the age of anxiety. Tranquilizers are in common use. Each day physicians see many patients with physical problems either triggered or made worse by anxieties. The human body, when faced with a threat, usually reacts in one of two ways: it prepares to remove the threat or escape from it. 

This is the basis of the familiar "fight or flight" concept of adjustment. When there is a failure of adjustment, when the body does not react one way or the other, when there is internal conflict, there is anxiety. Anxiety is not the same as fear. Fear stems from recognition of a specific danger, but anxiety tends to be unspecific-a condition of heightened tension and apprehension that often cannot be pinned down.

 While fear and anxiety both signal that the security of the individual is threatened, the danger signaled by anxiety is not necessarily concrete and objective. Both fear and anxiety set protective body processes in motion. When you experience a fear, adrenal gland and other changes take place, organizing the body to meet the fear-provoking threat. 

The emotion of fear is no mistake of nature: it can aid survival. Recently, for example, when a plane by accident dropped a live 200- pound bomb on an aircraft carrier deck, a sailor rushed over, lugged it to the side and threw it overboard, saving his own and many other lives. Next day, when challenged, he could not budge a similar but safely de- fused bomb. There have been many instances of mothers who, in behalf of threatened children, accomplished seemingly impossible feats of strength.