Anxiety – it’s a feeling we’ve all experienced and it’s something that differs from person to person. For you anxiety might feel like a worrying thought that won’t go away, for someone else it could feel like acute terror. Another person may feel their heart pounding while someone else could experience shaking hands. The good thing about anxiety is that it’s usually fleeting and gone once the issue that’s making us anxious is resolved. But what if you can’t shake the feelings of unease? What if they gradually get worse until your heart is continually pounding and all you can feel is fear? What if your anxiety gets so bad that you can’t breathe and feel as though you may die at any second?

Anxiety is a complex condition and one that many Irish people have to try and cope with on a daily basis. It’s an illness that has many manifestations and guises and one that can, without treatment, have a debilitating impact on the sufferer’s quality of life.

According to St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problem along with depression that affect the population of Ireland and Europe. Shockingly, they account for a similar level of stress and disability within our society as illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. It is estimated that one in nine people will suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder in their lifetime and unfortunately only a small amount of these people will get the appropriate treatment that they need. Anxiety disorders can strike anyone at any time and are not age specific.

“I would say [anxiety affects] a very significant number of the population,” says Dr Harry Barry, author of Flagging Anxiety and Panic: How to reshape your anxious mind and brain.

“I would easily be putting anxiety conditions of all forms up to maybe 20-30 per cent of the population. So many people have panic attacks, a very significant number of women, particularly, have general anxiety. A very large percentage have social anxiety and then you have all the people, the myriad of people with different phobias… and that’s not counting the PTSDs and the OCDs and the rest of it.”

The PTSDs and OCDs that Dr Barry is referring to are: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – both conditions which fall on the anxiety spectrum. With so many different types and such diverse symptoms and experiences, anxiety is something that is hard to get a handle on. Dr Barry, a GP with a special interest in mental health, said that he was compelled to write about anxiety because people have such a vague grasp on what it actually is.

“The first thing I think is that anxiety in a nutshell is about worry and panic is all about fear. So in other words, these are two human emotions that we all have an anxiety is where we’re worrying about what might happen and catastrophizing about what might happen. And fear is very much where I have this acute sense that something terrible is going to happen at this moment in time,” says Dr Barry.

Sometimes the fear that’s so engrained in anxiety can take on a life of its own and turn into a panic attack – a horrific episode that has strong physical symptoms for the sufferer.

One of the main secrets to unravelling anxiety is understanding how your brain works and Dr Barry says that there is one certain part of the brain that is crucial to how an anxiety disorder works – the amygdala.

“The amygdala is basically this little organ that’s been there for years and it sits in the middle of our emotional brain. Its job is to look out for danger. So, for example, when I was out in Africa one time I met a leopard in the middle of the night and the amygdala spotted the leopard before I did because that’s its job. I got this woosh of physical senses – my heart pounding, shaking, sweating, couldn’t breathe, muscles tense, mouth dry, stomach in knots – all of which are exactly what the person with a panic attack gets.”

Dr Barry goes on to explain that the problem with the amygdala is that it’s a little stupid.

“It’s not particularly smart. It’s like sitting in a little office somewhere with its thumb on this bell and every time it senses danger it fires. It doesn’t actually work out if the danger is serious or not, it just fires and we call it the gunslinger because eventually, in some people, he becomes trigger-happy and he starts firing without any particular reason.”

The result are increasing feelings of fear and terror and the more the amygdala gets triggered, the easier it becomes to have this flight-or-fight response until eventually a person is suffering from full-blown frequent panic attacks.  Symptoms of a panic attack include but are not limited to hyperventilation, heart palpitations, chest pain, a choking sensation, nausea, sweating and more. People who regularly experience them liken them to feeling as though you’re dying. They are, understandably, absolutely terrifying.

A year ago Dr Barry filmed a YouTube video which explained what a panic attack is and the correct way to stop it. To date the video has been viewed over 255,500 times.

“The interesting thing about the amygdala is that the amygdala is counter-intuitive. So whatever you tell the amygdala to do, it’ll do the opposite. What you have to learn to do with panic attacks is you have to learn to go with the symptoms. You actually imagine that you’re stuck to the ground and image that they’re washing over you,” says Dr Barry.

“Panic attacks are extremely uncomfortable, but if you let them happy they’re gone in 10 minutes. If you try and stop them they’ll be there for an hour.”

If you or someone you know is suffering from anxiety or panic attacks, the good news is that there is hope. Dr Barry has the following advice:

“The critical thing about anxiety disorders is that, in general, they’re actually reasonably easy to manage or to treat once you understand what they are and why you’re getting them and what to do. The biggest problem in my experience is actually lack of information. People don’t understand what’s going on.

“I think the second big thing for me and probably the biggest reason for writing this book was that people don’t understand the physical nature of anxiety. But once you understand that, an awful lot of the rest is much easier to deal with.”

Dr Harry Barry is a medical doctor based in county Louth. He specialises in the area of mental health and, in particular, depression and anxiety. He is the author of several bestselling books. His latest book Flagging Anxiety and Panic (Liberties Press, €14.99) is out now.