Understanding anxiety and mental health stigma (by Pete Etchells)

Understanding anxiety and mental health stigma (by Pete Etchells)

The Guardian, Friday 27 September 2013, 07.00 BST .

http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/sep/27/neuroscience-psychology

This article is about anxiety, one of the most common types of mental health problem nowadays, notes, for example that about 9% of people in Britain meet the criteria for mixed anxiety and depression.

However, the author claims that the anxious isn’t necessarily a bad thing, says that we all feel it from time to time because the anxiety is an adaptative function that causes a state of physiological readiness to deal with any threats, since anxiety increases awareness of our surroundings.

Afterwards, he describes the pathological anxiety as one that response kicks in too often and in situations where it is not needed, rising to become in a debilitating problem.

The autor says that there is a wealth of research that is trying of understands the anxious mechanisms. He suggests that with understanding what happens when we become anxious, we might know that´s wrong in the anxiety disorders.

Mr. Etchells indicates that a new study published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience has suggested one potential contributing factor to anxiety emergence; this is about how smells are processed. The results of this study of Elizabeth Krusemark and Wen Li from the University of Wisconsin says that, the same odors that were initially rated as being neutral were rated as unpleasant after of that the participants became anxious.They also found that the anxiety produces a stronger bond in the brain, between an area involved in smell and an area involved in emotion.

Finally, the autor concludes  that understanding how anxiety works might help to destigmatise mental health issues.