3 Steps of Anxiety Overload – And How You Can Take Back Control @TED #shorts #ted

So what makes anxiety healthy?

Anxiety is healthy when it is serving as an alarm system

that lets us know that something's not right,

that it gets our attention and helps us to keep ourselves safe.

The only time we consider anxiety to cross the line from healthy to unhealthy

is under two conditions, actually.

One is when we have anxiety, but there’s no threat,

that there's nothing wrong.

So if it's, you know, a lovely Sunday morning and you're taking a drive

and there's no traffic nearby,

you shouldn't be having an anxiety response in that moment.

And if you do, we would consider that grounds for concern.

The other time we pay attention to anxiety and consider it to be unhealthy

is if the anxiety response is way  too big for what's happened,

out of proportion to events.

So if somebody swerves and cut you off  and you have a panic attack in that moment,

that is not healthy anxiety, it is not helping you.

And we would address that clinically.

Other than that, we really see anxiety as largely normal, protective, healthy

and useful in our lives.