Has Long-Term Anxiety Robbed You Of Your 'Gut Feeling' Intuition?
Call it human instinct, intuition or a sixth sense, the 'gut feeling' you get when you are faced with a dangerous or fearful situation is something everyone is born with. The human species has a built-in fight or flight response system for basic survival, enabling you to avoid getting killed or seriously harmed throughout your life. You may have heard people you know saying things like: 'I didn't go to so and so because my gut feeling told me not to' or ' I am glad I trusted my gut feelings about that person.' However, if you have lived your entire life under extremely stressful circumstances and have experienced long-term high levels of anxiety, your 'gut feeling' instinct may be subdued a great deal. Find out more about anxiety impacts basic survival instincts.
Long-Term Anxiety Can Inhibit Your Gut Instinct
When you think about how you feel when anxious about something, you may see how it can dampen 'your gut feeling' instinct. Anxiety produces the same emotional responses as your gut instinct, one of the greatest being fear. If you have experienced a lot of anxiety over a long time, you lose the ability to differentiate between anxiety related emotions and those produced by your 'gut feeling' instinct. For example, if you meet someone that makes you feel uneasy, your gut instinct may be warning you that person is untrustworthy. However, if you have experienced a lot of socially related anxiety, you may not recognize your gut instinct's warning, but might instead consider it your normal response to a new social circumstance.
Going Back In Time To Your Childhood Matters
If you lived under a lot of stress as a child, you more than likely were also experiencing high levels of nervousness and anxiety during that time. Children living in situations of domestic abuse or with parents that are fighting a great deal of time generally experience extreme fear and anxiety. They grows into adults that experience high levels of anxiety, doubt and depression. When it comes to trusting their gut instinct about certain people or situations, adults that lived under high stress as children have trouble telling the difference between their emotional responses. Professional counseling can help you regain your true gut instinct by helping you get your anxiety and fear under control. Learning about the things that trigger emotional responses related only to anxiety can help you realize the difference between those emotions and the warning from your gut instinct.
For more information, contact Psychological Associates of Pennsylvania PC or a similar location.
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