How Anxiety Affects Relationships & Goals

Healthy relationships and realistic goals are crucial for overall happiness, but anxiety throws a wrench into the gears of both. Give yourself permission to start healing and enjoy life with help from the providers at Mind Matters.

Anxiety attacks, also known as panic attacks, differ from general anxiety, but they are related. When you experience an anxiety attack, it’s a sudden, strong, and short episode of intense feelings like you’re losing control and other physical symptoms, like dizziness and difficulty breathing.

Goals help you find direction in life and promote well-being. Setting a goal also enables you to hold yourself accountable for your actions and enjoy the tasks of reaching it more. Any goal is essential, whether it’s to walk around the block or pursue higher education.

However, untreated anxiety can interfere with every goal you have. Self-doubt may cause you to procrastinate or avoid taking action to reach a goal. Severe anxiety shifts your mind into short-term thinking rather than being able to see the bigger picture, making a goal seem impossible to achieve.

Anxiety disorders can make pursuing romantic and platonic relationships difficult. It also places strain on your existing relationships. Anxiety often causes individuals to isolate themselves from others, which makes developing and maintaining relationships more challenging.

Effective communication can feel difficult due to negative self-talk that causes you to overthink every situation. Some people need frequent reassurance; others may perceive them as too needy or clingy. Irritability is usually a factor in relationship difficulties, as well.

Psychiatric medication management is a valuable tool for anxiety treatment. There are many types of anti-anxiety medication, with the following being the most common:

• SSRIs: Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that affects mood regulation and gives individuals a feeling of happiness. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) delay reabsorption, increasing the availability in the brain.
• SNRIs: Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) target both neurotransmitters. Norepinephrine is responsible for feeling alert and is a primary factor in your stress response, aka “fight or flight.”
• Benzodiazepines: Benzodiazepines are a fast-acting sedative that reduces physical symptoms of anxiety and promotes relaxation within half an hour. They have potential for abuse, so psychiatry providers generally prescribe them for a short time or take them as needed for severe anxiety attacks.
• Off-Label Anxiolytics: All medications that reduce anxiety are anxiolytics. Some are FDA-approved to treat other issues, like high blood pressure, but the action of the drug also lessens anxiety.

Combining talk therapy with psychiatric medicine can improve outcomes for those with problematic anxiety. Medication can lessen the severity of anxiety, while therapy helps you process the underlying issues that contribute to it.

Think about your hands – one hand can perform most tasks without difficulty, but when you use both, you can hold more and move larger items.