Anxiety

“Don’t Worry—Be Happy” was the title of a song that swept the pop charts in 1988. Why was it so popular? I suspect because this phrase expresses one of the deepest yearnings of the human heart—to be free of all anxiety. Is such a yearning realistic? Is all anxiety bad for us? Thirty years in the psychologist’s chair has taught me one important lesson: anxiety is intricately interwoven with the essence of living. You cannot expect to live and be free of all anxiety.

“Don’t be anxious; anxiety is the exact opposite of faith”—so reads a tract, written by a popular preacher, that I came across recently. How realistic are such admonitions? Are these writers attacking all forms of anxiety or just some?

How is it possible for some to see anxiety as an essential emotion while others see it as a sign of spiritual failure? The answer lies in the fact that there are many forms of anxiety. When Jesus tells his disciples not to be anxious (Luke 12:25), he is referring to that form we commonly call worry anxiety. It is that form of anxiety that incapacitates and serves no useful purpose. Unfortunately, there are other afflictions we also call anxiety that are not so easy to dispose of. Before we pass judgment on anyone for being anxious, therefore, we need to know what form of anxiety we are talking about and understand how it differs from the neurotic form we call worry.

Why Should We Be Free of Anxiety?

Is it because God does not like anxious people? Is it because anxiety is synonymous with a lack of faith and is thus sinful? Is it because anxiety serves no useful function in the human psyche? These are provocative questions. The fact is that anxiety is an enigma. It has many faces, and while we can effectively treat some of its symptoms, we still do not fully understand its function or purpose in human experience.

While worry anxiety is clearly an undesirable disorder, anxiety’s very presence in human experience seems to point us to some larger and useful purpose. To many, including this author, some forms of anxiety are necessary and can be purposeful. Take the mother’s anxiety over her newborn baby. Is it breathing normally? Is it getting enough milk? These anxious thoughts help the mother to care for the baby.

Like pain, therefore, some anxiety is an important emotional “warning system” that alerts us to potential danger. Just as pain is necessary to the body to warn of disease and damage (though we may not deliberately seek it), so anxiety serves to send important messages of impending threat or danger to our emotional well-being. Without it, we would become emotional lepers and be constantly harming ourselves by not heeding emotional danger. To put it in a nutshell: people who have no anxiety are dangerous, tend to be sociopaths and feel no guilt. This is hardly a desirable set of traits!

Such a model of anxiety, however, assumes a perfect world and a mind that has been trained to respond only to healthy anxiety. In reality this wonderful warning system can all too quickly go astray very early. For many, then, too much anxiety is the problem, and their anxiety becomes a painful and debilitating experience. Furthermore, there is now ample evidence to show that the high demands and stress of modern life are taking their toll on and distorting our anxiety warning systems. Natural brain tranquilizers, produced within the brain to keep us at peace when there is no real threat or to enable us to act constructively when in danger, become depleted in our overworked brains. The result is a high incidence of incapacitating, purposeless anxiety disorders. This, as well as purposeless worry, is what Jesus warns us to avoid!

Battling Anxiety

Despite our high level of sophistication and technological expertise, anxiety and its related manifestations remain a major psychological and medical challenge today. The treatment of severe anxiety disturbances puts many at risk for addiction to the medications used. It is no wonder that many Christian leaders are concerned about how this problem is approached today.

Intuitively we know that prescribing massive doses of artificial tranquilizers is not a satisfactory solution. We also know that the incidence of severe anxiety disorders is on the increase. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, panic anxiety disorder is now the number-one mental-health problem in women (Hart, p. 56). It is second in men only to substance abuse. Distress, restlessness, nervousness, fear and panic, competitiveness, crowded living conditions and too much stress make matters worse, not better. The stress of twentieth-century living affects everyone, and part of the price we pay for it is an increase in general anxiety.

And what will the twenty-first century bring? Better and less addicting tranquilizers? Perhaps! Certainly not less anxiety. With problems such as polluted air, contaminated food, the greenhouse effect and nuclear waste (to name just a very few) already staring us in the face, a person would have to be awfully naive not to be anxious about the future.

The Anxiety Picture Today

As a result, scores of people in every neighborhood suffer from persistent anxiety-related problems: difficulty in sleeping, stomach problems and generalized stress. They worry themselves into an early grave or fret away their precious life seeking an escape in alcohol, drugs or shopping.

The anxiety-related disorders we suffer from today include the following: worry anxiety (excessive rumination on imagined or unlikely fears, expectation of the worst and a bracing for an imagined catastrophe), fear anxiety (anxiety over real fears, threats or demands; overconcern about a particular happening that may only have some basis in reality), existential anxiety (anxiety over lack of purpose or nonbeing, awareness of the inevitability of death leading to concern for a meaningful life), panic anxiety (chemical imbalance in the brain due to the lack of natural tranquilizers, causing all systems to become hyperactive and easily panicked; can lead to agoraphobia), phobic anxiety (exaggerated and persistent fears, avoidance of certain places, people or projects), generalized anxiety (unfocused and generalized anxiety that becomes free-floating, often changing its object of concern), and separation anxiety (originating in an insecure childhood, this anxiety arises whenever a person is cut off from home or loved ones).

How Common Are Anxiety-Related Disorders?

Millions of Americans experience incapacitating anxiety every day. For most it lasts long enough, is severe enough and causes sufficient dysfunction to disturb their everyday living and warrant psychological therapy and/or medical treatment. Just how many suffer from some sort of anxiety problem? No one really knows. One estimate puts it as high as forty million (15 percent of the population). According to a recent news report, thirty-five million Americans suffer from periodic panic attacks alone, and this is only one form of anxiety disorder (Hart, p. 3). And while we now know a lot about how to treat the more severe anxiety disorders, there is still much confusion about the best form of treatment.

Many other emotional problems also have their roots in anxiety. Several studies have shown that those who suffer from depression also have severe anxiety symptoms. Clinically, the close connection between anxiety and depression has been known for many years. The problem is further complicated by the fact that some of the medications used to treat anxiety will aggravate depression symptoms and vice versa. This can be perplexing, even to professionals.

Getting Help for Anxiety

Few emotional problems are more common or more debilitating than anxiety. Most of us realize, on the basis of personal experience as well as observation of fellow humans, that anxiety is a pervasive and profound phenomenon in our society. As we approach the end of the twentieth century, its devastation seems to be on the increase. We are anxious as individuals, and an air of anxiety hangs over everything.

Medications that calm the nerves or relax the muscles are helpful and absolutely essential in panic and generalized anxiety. Sufferers from these forms of anxiety disturbance need to seek immediate professional help because the sooner they are treated, the less likely the problem will become permanently entrenched.

But medications are useful only if they buy the time needed to bring one’s life under control—to master fears, reduce stress and susceptibility to anxiety. In the end the problem with all anxiety is a problem of lifestyle, a matter of goals and priorities. No matter how effective treatment is, the problem will recur if major life changes are not made.

Faith and Anxiety

How does one’s faith in Jesus Christ interface with anxiety? It would be grossly irresponsible to say that all anxiety is a sign of spiritual failure. While stress underlies panic anxiety and can therefore be susceptible to the choices we make, separation and generalized anxiety have roots that go way back to early childhood and possibly even have genetic influences. These forms of anxiety need very careful handling, and it usually takes the skill of a well-trained professional to help. Inept help can significantly increase anxiety problems.

Whatever the type of anxiety being experienced, however, the resources of the Christian life are profoundly designed to help us cope with it. Achieving a balanced life is the ultimate goal. Whether or not medication is used, we ignore to our loss the profound effect that spiritual dimensions can have on our emotional well-being. Prayer and Scripture are more than just spiritual resources. They influence how we feel, our values and priorities. Humans are more than physical organisms, and nowhere does a balanced spiritual life affect us more than in the realm of our anxieties.

I am convinced that one reason so many people suffer from acute anxiety in our society is that they fail to make this important connection. Not even our most sophisticated technology, medical or psychological, can free us from an important but painful facet of our existence—our built-in need to be reconnected with our Creator. This need overrides all others, and when it is unmet, there is much cause for anxiety. Because most researchers and therapists ignore this reality, they tend to place too much emphasis on the physical world as a cause of anxiety and fail to address deeper spiritual needs.

Christians are by no means free of the problem of anxiety. Many are even at greater risk than the general population because trying to live a holy life in an unholy world where fragmentation is the norm is not easy. The words of Peter are a strong medicine even today, and we ignore them to our detriment: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7 NRSV).

» See also: Depression

» See also: Drugs

» See also: Emotions

» See also: Failure

» See also: Health

» See also: Stress, Workplace

References and Resources

S. Agras, Panic: Facing Fears, Phobias and Anxiety (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1985); A. D. Hart, Overcoming Anxiety (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1989).

—Archibald D. Hart