Anxiety Causes
There are many potential anxiety causes, but this is still an area that requires much more research before anything can be known with certainty.
Based on the most recent research, and also on the contact I’ve had with thousands of people with all forms of anxiety disorders, the following appear to be the most common causes of anxiety:
- Heredity
- Brain Chemistry
- Personality
- Life Experiences
Heredity:
A theory that I’ve noticed gain quite a bit of credibility over the last couple of years is that of heredity - the idea that anxiety runs in families. There are certainly plenty of stats to back up the idea that you’re more likely to develop some form of anxiety during your lifetime if an immediate relative also has an anxiety disorder.
But there’s a potential flaw in this research, and that flaw is that perhaps environmental factors, life events, and parenting styles are to blame, rather than an inherited predisposition to developing anxiety.
After all, all the children in a single family will likely be exposed to very similar things as they grow up, and if one of them experiences events and behaviours likely to cause problems with anxiety later in life, then so too will all the other children in that same family.
Brain Chemistry:
Brain chemistry is another potential cause of anxiety that’s getting a lot of attention at the moment. Many experts in the area are confident that brain chemistry will eventually prove to be the single biggest cause of all forms of anxiety disorder.
The problem, these experts say, is that people with anxiety disorders have atypical levels of norepinephrine and serotonin - the neurotransmitters found in the brain that are responsible for carrying signals and messages around. If these neurotransmitters are not found in the correct amount it can cause someone to be more likely to develop all forms of anxiety disorder.
Many people with anxiety are prescribed anti-anxiety drugs (anti-depressants, most typically SSRIs) that work on correcting the levels of serotonin in the brain. However, only about one third of these people report any improvement in their anxiety following this form of treatment. That suggests that for up to two thirds of people with anxiety disorders the cause is not brain chemistry.
Personality:
Personality traits such as low self-esteem and poor social skills are often found in those of us with anxiety disorders. This has led some to suggest that these negative personality traits are actually the cause of the anxiety and not just symptoms of it.
It’s a tricky one to call - which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Almost all people with severe anxiety also have low self-esteem, poor social skills, and poor coping skills. I know this is true of me, and I know this was the case before my anxiety got out of control. That leads me to believe that this is one of the leading causes of all forms of anxiety and panic disorder.
It’s also led me to believe that tackling these problems (low self esteem, poor coping skills, etc.) can prove a very powerful way to indirectly combat the anxiety itself.
Life Experiences:
What happens to you as you grow up, from birth right through until early adulthood, certainly shapes the person you become, so it should come as no surprise that your life experiences have the potential to cause anxiety disorders.
Traumatic and stressful life events that occur in the delicate developmental stages of childhood will almost certainly increase the likelihood of an anxiety disorder developing later in life.
These stressful situations can occur in most areas of life, but are most likely to be linked to poverty, violence, parents divorcing, a death in the family, and bullying.
Learn More About The Causes of Anxiety:
Another good resource you might want to check out, if you’re interested to learn more about the causes of anxiety, is the Mayo Clinic’s Page On Anxiety Causes.
