Everyone experiences normal, temporary periods of anxiety in life, such as worrying about a problem at work or worrying about a loved one when he or she is sick.
Worrying by nature is thinking about possibilities in the future,over and over, focusing on “what might happen,” or “what-if thoughts.”
However, a person struggles with chronic worries excessively almost every day and, typically, the worrisome thoughts jump from one cause of concern to the next, making them uncontrollable, time-consuming, and very distracting.
When dealing with chronic worry, the content of your worries could involve multiple subjects, such as finances, friendships, career, health, or performance or other areas of your life.
Some people with GAD might recognize that their worries are excessive and go beyond what might realistically happen, while others might think that all of their worries are within the realm of possibility. In both cases, the anxious thoughts appear impossible to stop and are extremely troublesome. When a person is struggling with GAD, he or she has numerous troubling thoughts that can’t be controlled throughout the day. The causes of concern might not even be related to one another
Chronic worrying can affect your daily functioning:sleep, job performances, school performance, and relationships with others.
For example, Philip spends hours each night worrying about his children’s futures, mulling over questions such as “have I raised them to be good people?”,
“Are they doing enough extra-curriculars?” and “are we saving enough for them to be able to go to a good college?” He plays out every possible scenario in his mind, making plans to cut spending and vacations to increase the amount in his children’s college funds. Due to this, Philip is not getting a lot of sleep and is dozing off in meetings, which his supervisor has noticed and asked him about. He repeatedly asks his wife if she thinks that the children are doing enough for their college applications, or if they should be playing more sports. These questions annoy his wife as she feels they have had this conversation before.
