People who undergo this condition feel impending doom, anxiousness, rapid heartbeat, and even gastrointestinal problems. The symptoms may portray no visible signs for a lay observer but nonetheless intensely affects the individuals having it.
A large number of people in Singapore go through this anxiety disorder. Since most of these cases are not taken into account, the total figure might still be large.
There is still a dispute whether high functioning anxiety is an enlisted and acknowledged medical disorder or not. But it can still have a debilitating impact on the health of a person.
People suffering from this look absolutely fine with nothing bothering them but deep down they suffer a lot. This is one of the reasons why this form of anxiety is hard to detect.
How Does High Functioning Anxiety Affect Us?
There are several ways in which high functioning anxiety can affect our day-to-day life. Some of them are as follows:
Inability To Relax
People who suffer from this condition are always anxious from the inside. They find it really hard to take the situation in an easy manner. This is the reason why they are never able to relax as such. Although they might pretend that they are fine from the inside, they are not. Some kind of worry or fear constantly nags their peace of mind and prevents them from fully enjoying anything.
Overthinking Things
It is alright to think deeply about some important matter. However, the people who suffer from intense anxiety tend to overthink almost everything. They tend to complicate even the simplest problems by adding unnecessary and irrational fear into them. As a result, every problem looks unbearable to them and they try to run away from facing any situation. Even the decisions which otherwise look all too apartments becomes a subject of second-guessing or reevaluation. This can seriously affect a person’s decision-making process.
Negativity In Outlook
Pessimism is one of the chief attributes of those who suffer from this condition. They simply cannot visualize that something might turn out positively. The fear is always inside them that whatever is taking place is sure to have a negative effect on them or on their goals. The stress on negativity automatically makes it all the more difficult for a person to keep hope from anything. The ultimate outcome of such an attitude is that such persons can never give their best in anything by knowing fully well that it will not be much effective.
A person suffering from high functioning anxiety cannot look at things positively.
Poor Sleep Pattern
Sleep patterns get seriously affected by high levels of anxiety. A person who constantly feels anxious will have a hard time warding off his thoughts even when on the bed. This prevents him from getting sleepy and as a result, can affect his sleep cycle. Not being able to sleep on time can seriously affect the productive hours of the day. For some, the situation can be triggered to such a level that it can cause insomnia.
Excessive Working
One of the traits of people suffering from an anxiety disorder is that they do tend to be workaholics. The desire to be constantly productive emanates from the fear that they are not being valuable enough in their output. Lacking satisfaction with a given task also propels the desire to work more till it becomes perfect. Overworking can have serious effects on their health and can herald many other serious conditions.
Poor Self-esteem
One of the worst things about high-functioning anxiety is that it takes down the level of confidence of an individual in a serious manner. Self-esteem is extremely important for a person to work on personal and social relationships. Given the corporate work structure of Singapore, it is important that a professional should have the self-esteem to be able to complete his or her task in the most efficient and effective manner. Anxiety disorder, however, puts a check on that.
Inability To Say ‘No’
An individual struggling with intense anxiety always finds it difficult to say ‘no’ to anyone even when it is against his interest. The fear that someone might think low of him drives him with the condition to be good in everyone’s book. As one is not able to fathom one’s value and importance, one constantly seeks to get justifications from others. This will prevent people from not only coming out confidently but also taking a firm stand for something.
Unrealistic Demands
One thing which such anxiety craves is to take the individual beyond the present situation and get engaged with something which is not there. This drives people to set unrealistic goals and demands from others as well as from themselves. Disappointment can be the only outcome of such demands.
As it is evident, high functioning anxiety can create so many disturbances in our day-to-day life. From both psychological and physiological perspectives, it needs to be addressed as soon as possible, or else it can severely damage a person’s well-being.