Women And Anxiety
If you’re ready to move forward from challenges like fear and anxiety that prevent your deeper recovery… take a look at this.
Is It More Common For Women To Feel Anxious Than Men?
Now this sounds like an interesting topic, doesn’t it? Why would more women feel this way than men, or any other group?
Well, I’m going to put forward a dangerous proposition. I’m going to suggest if you’re a female reader then you might already be an expert in doing what it takes to survive and cope with some form of anxiety.
According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America not only is anxiety more common among women than men… but women are also twice as likely as men to experience anxiety during their lifetimes.
(From there, it splits off into the various forms that anxiety takes.)
You could even say most women are survival experts, especially if you look at the scientific research over at the University of Cambridge that shows women experience more anxiety than men because of the deepest levels of “brain chemistry” and “hormone fluctuation” (among other causes).
Maybe a lot of women have this challenge because they’re blocked in one way or another from learning about their experience of anxiety and themselves as human beings.
What I’m saying is that without helpful insight from certain circles many women might go struggling and enduring through one situation after another without ever getting the support of a trained, third-party professional on these types of matters.
And so they don’t go through a process found in anxiety therapy where they could experience the small changing of a few key things that might help their condition and circumstances, delivered to them with professional compassion and confidentiality.
Working with an anxiety therapist will help you understand what you’re doing and the outcomes you may be triggering… so you can have a shot at making a change. I hope what I share in this article is valuable to you.
5 Typical Ways Women Get The Most Anxiety
As you can probably tell, I love psychological research because it can teach us so much about who we are. When we know who we are and where we came from, we have the best chance to press on. Women in particular face 5 challenges that cause them to feel the most anxiety in our society.
Dr. Michelle Craske, an amazing psychiatrist, first identified these 5 ways. She revealed that women may have higher rates of anxiety disorders because of “increased vulnerability”—a vulnerability that has 5 parts.
Put differently, this is why you may struggle with things like trust issues, even about people you know… where you want to believe you can trust them, but your past experiences always have that little voice!
And why is it a disadvantage to not know how these 5 parts might affect your psychology and your life? Take a look at this “formula”—
Not knowing = UNAWARE.
Unaware = NO HELP.
No Help = NO PROTECTION.
No Protection = NO VULNERABLE SPOT YOU’D WANT TO BE IN!
One of the quickest ways to feel more anxiety is to be vulnerable. Fortunately, anxiety therapy explores all the unique, individualized ways these 5 challenges influence how you feel and what you do in your everyday life. Then you’ll be free to live your life the way you want to live it.
I’m not going to expand on the topic here, but the reality is that vulnerability affects women in many specific and special ways.
Before I go on, I want to mention something very important to me. If you’re a woman who experiences anxiety attacks or other symptoms and you can’t seem to get rid of them, then go read this.
Here are the 5 ways that Dr. Craske found women’s vulnerability gives them the most anxiety (and, I’ll add, these 5 things can overlap):
1) More Negative Emotions.
If someone deals with high anxiety symptoms, it makes sense they’re going feel more bad emotions overall, right? Well yeah, except it’s more of a challenge if you’re a woman because you’re also contending with the other factors on this list. If you’re a woman with anxiety, you could experience bad or negative emotions more deeply and more frequently.
“Higher negative affectivity” is usually triggered by your fear or need. Many women with anxiety probably go through a cycle like this: fear, something else happens, then more fear…
It seems like the cycle might calm down eventually, but it almost never truly does. This alone is a major challenge to cope with on your own. We might even call this one a “negative feedback loop,” if you’ll allow me a nerdy moment.
2) Different Socialization Patterns.
What are most women taught growing up? Well, to be dependent on family or inner circle… and when they encounter problems, to be “prosocial” and caring and dutiful, but almost never assertive.
So what do they do? They probably think to to themselves: “Self, you’d better do what’s expected of you!”
Or maybe: “Self, if you need help, you better ask quietly, or maybe don’t even ask at all.”
What likely happens after that? Right. Other people’s wants and needs become more important than your own… and deep down you might feel your wants and needs aren’t worth the time and care to be looked at. Society reinforces this socialization and many women suffer in ways that aren’t authentic to their pain.
People may think this “seems safer” in the short-term, but anxiety therapy can offer you the opportunity to stop denying your wants and needs because you’ll have the skills to manage your symptoms over the long-term.
3) More “Pervasive” Anxiety.
Some women experience so much anxiety throughout life that they have trouble separating real threats from false ones. This can lead to feeling like the whole world is against you. Then it can be harder to make the right decisions because maybe you’re always on the lookout for how things could go wrong.
I know it hurts to live like this. But there is hope for women with high anxiety symptoms. Even if it seems impossible to fight off, anxiety therapy will help you in the calmer moments to be ready for the return of your anxiety symptoms.
And on that note, anxiety symptoms show up in a lot of different ways… from feeling nervous to sleeping problems to a spiked heart rate… so if you have any of these signs, please get yourself anxiety treatment.
4) Sensitivity To Threatening Reminders.
This one might cause the most tension.
Many women with anxiety use their powers of sensitivity to find threats they believe will result in negative outcomes. That’s because many women with anxiety have a high sensitivity to “reminders of threat” and “contextual threat cues.” This gets triggered by strong feelings of fear and emotion.
These feelings usually come from experience… and a lot of times that experience is traumatic. As you probably know, girls are more likely than boys to experience childhood trauma that can include neglect or physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
Furthermore, adult women are still abused in these ways but they also suffer very high rates of sexual assault… which is so traumatic it can cause anxiety.
Of course, female trauma can come from other experiences as well. The important thing to remember is that untreated trauma will be relived unless a trained professional helps soothe the memories and provides mental health support.
5) Avoidance, Worry, And Rumination.
Many women with anxiety can also fall into this pattern as well. Here’s what happens:
Maybe you miss one of the signs of anxiety attack and you suffer the consequences. So you have a panic attack, upset stomach, or other symptoms. What happens next? It’s natural. You probably keep thinking about how to avoid it better in the future. And you might do this while feeling very worried.
You could keep thinking something like, “If I only understood how to stop this from happening again, then I’d be safe.” It hurts. But luckily, anxiety therapy can help you stop ruminating so you can take back a sense of safety.
So there you have it: the top 5 ways women get the most anxiety. But there’s a deeper message too.
Here it is:
If you don’t understand the process of how and why anxiety happens for you, including the things to really avoid doing, then you’re going to keep experiencing anxiety. Not knowing you might have a skill deficiency makes it difficult to recover. And, unfortunately, our modern society is not as helpful as it could be for women with anxiety.
No wonder many women feel alone in their emotional responses to situations that would challenge anyone’s “thinking.” No wonder this happens for women when the challenges are two times harder than for other groups of people.
However, the good news is that it does not have to stay this way. There is another option.
If you found this article helpful, then you’re probably ready to explore the deeper reasons why you feel anxiety and how to manage your anxiety symptoms.
If you’re ready to stop feeling anxiety and figure out how to move forward, then it’s probably time for you to work with an anxiety therapist about how to cope with anxiety and keep on coping.
The best therapy for anxiety that I can recommend is working with me. It’ll be 12 full sessions where I use the very best counseling concepts to help you in anxiety treatment.
As your male therapist, our work together may also help you overcome any fears of men or broken trust of men you may have from your life experiences. I’d be honored if you take that chance with me and I invite you to reach out!
I hope to hear from you soon.
Find out more about Anxiety Treatment.
About The Author
John Younes, JD, MA, LPCC, NCC is a trained counselor who owns a private practice in Denver, CO. In general, he specializes in depression treatment and anxiety treatment using existential and cognitive therapy practices.
Oh and if you’re thinking about suicide and are in immediate danger, please call your local emergency number… so for Denver, Colorado, call 1-844-493-8255 or text TALK to 38255. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.