Anxiety, where does it come from?

Anxiety is a natural human response to inner and outer stimuli in our worlds.  It lies in the emotional category of “fear” and can range from small experiences of concern and worry to overwhelming experiences of panic and dread.

Anxiety was originally built by the body to keep us safe from threats in our environment.  Many thousands of years ago, that was necessary for survival as our earliest ancestors were challenged to survive in the wild.  For example, humans back then scavenging for food in the forest would have to be alert to their environment if a wild animal or other dangers could potentially attack or cause harm.  Anxiety would operate in this example as a signal that danger was present, whether that be a threatening animal, tree falling, weather-related dangers, etc.  It was constructed to keep us safe and, thankfully, worked as our species could survive, reproduce, and evolve.

Because anxiety has helped us deal effectively with threats in our past, those responses have then been passed on through our genetic material as a survival mechanism. Some people have stronger anxiety responses than others, which is just an indicator that ancestors of that lineage may have developed those genes more strongly and/or were raised in environments that triggered the presence of more anxious responses.  For example, if the biological mother/father lives in more hazardous conditions, the anxiety response may be triggered more frequently or at higher levels than mothers/fathers that don’t live in those conditions.  The child of that environment may then receive those genes that store elevated anxiousness and observe that behavior during child-rearing (which can strengthen the anxiety response, overall). 

These patterns are also true in our modern world.  Some people are born with more anxiety than others based on their genes and may have childhood experiences that exaggerate those responses.  That doesn’t mean we are locked into those reactions, but rather that we may benefit from learning how to change the brain’s anxiety responses to reduce its power. 

Overall, anxiety exists to help us even when it feels like an intruder.  All it is is information about our experiences; we have all the power to listen to those messages, then choose our own path (even if that path is sitting with the feelings until they pass).  Fear can definitely be used to our advantage in this modern world if we let it!