USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
    Lifestyle
    Home / Lifestyle / People

    Feeling anxious in a world of real dangers

    China Daily/Agencies | Updated: 2013-01-22 09:19
    Feeling anxious in a world of real dangers

    During a tournament, professional golfer Charlie Beljan suffered panic attacks that forced a hospital visit. He overcame his anxiety and won. Christian Petersen / Getty Images

    The young professional golfer Charlie Beljan should have been enjoying himself on the course in Florida last November as he stroked and putted his way to his first PGA victory. Instead, he spent the entire time thinking he was going to die.

    Feeling anxious in a world of real dangers

    Fear gripped him from one hole to the next: he was certain he was having a heart attack. His pulse raced, his heart pounded. After the first round, he left the course in an ambulance. Hospital tests showed he was fine. He was having a panic attack.

    Beljan, 28, returned to the course and won the tournament, but throughout he struggled to remain standing. "I was crying on the range because I was so afraid these feelings would come back," he told The Times.

    That reaction is understandable: In a world where danger does truly lurk (climate change, flu epidemics) and tragedy does strike (accidents, war, mass shootings), the runaway fear of a panic attack - a neurochemical event that causes a flight response without immediate cause - is especially disorienting. But it's not uncommon. Some 40 million American adults experience some form of anxiety, making it the most prevalent mental health condition in the United States.

    Fear of dangerous situations (an earthquake tremor, a poisonous snake at your feet) is normal and thought to be an evolutionary trait that is part of our survival skills. Anxiety occurs when any fear - rational or irrational - interferes with daily life.

    Feeling anxious in a world of real dangers

    The man who came in from the cold

    But Beljan might be considered a novice. A real master of worrying, like the film director and screenwriter Woody Allen, embraces his fear - in his case, hypochondria - and uses it for laughs. "When I panic over symptoms that require no more than an aspirin or a little calamine lotion, what is it I'm really frightened of? My best guess is dying," he wrote in The Times. "I have always had an animal fear of death, a fate I rank second only to having to sit through a rock concert."

    Widespread anxiety leads the list of mental disorders in nearly every developed nation. Still, some feel that the American way of life, with its worship of the "pursuit of happiness," is a national recipe for worry. In "America, happiness is work. Intense, nail-biting work, slogged out in motivational seminars and therapy sessions, meditation retreats and airport bookstores," Ruth Whippman, a Briton, wrote in The Times. "For the left there's yoga, for the right, there's Jesus. For no one is there respite."

    Anxiety can have a national character, not free-floating, but historical. Traumatic events like wars, natural disasters and collapsing economies - like those of Greece and Spain now threatening the stability of Europe - can infect a national psyche.

    In places where the long shadow of the Holocaust lingers and where rogue violence from far right factions still threatens many ethnic groups, anxiety can be both phantasmic and very real. The Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai wrote of the sense of always waiting for a knock at his door from a visitor who is violence personified: "He's not to be located either here or there, because, strange as it sounds, there is no single point on earth he could claim to be his home - he is pretty well everywhere. Of course there's no name, no past, nothing, just muscle pumped up with hatred."

    As for Beljan, the public nature of his panic attack brought him notoriety as a talented, likeable representative for people with anxiety disorders, who often feel intensely isolated. His winning tournament also brought him an $846,000 paycheck and, perhaps briefly, some peace of mind.

    Peter Catapano

    The New York Times

    Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
    License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

    Registration Number: 130349
    FOLLOW US
    AV无码久久久久不卡蜜桃| 最近更新免费中文字幕大全| 无码人妻精品一区二区三区99性| 国产∨亚洲V天堂无码久久久| 最好看的电影2019中文字幕 | 亚洲人成影院在线无码观看| 亚洲Av综合色区无码专区桃色| 久久中文字幕视频、最近更新| 亚洲成a人无码av波多野按摩| 无码国产精品一区二区免费式芒果| 最近最新免费中文字幕高清| 亚洲欧美综合中文| 久久久久亚洲av成人无码电影| 日韩精品无码一区二区中文字幕 | 一本加勒比hezyo无码专区| 台湾佬中文娱乐中文| 亚洲区日韩区无码区| 欧日韩国产无码专区| AV大片在线无码永久免费| 日韩AV无码精品人妻系列| 中文字幕一区二区三区在线不卡 | 久久久久亚洲AV片无码下载蜜桃| 免费A级毛片无码A∨中文字幕下载 | 无码人妻精品中文字幕免费| 国产亚洲精品无码专区| 国产免费无码AV片在线观看不卡 | 精品三级AV无码一区| 亚洲国产精品无码久久久不卡| 久久人妻无码中文字幕| 亚洲色无码播放| 国产综合无码一区二区辣椒| 国产成人无码AV一区二区在线观看| 日韩va中文字幕无码电影| 国模无码人体一区二区 | 91久久九九无码成人网站| 人妻丰满熟妞av无码区| 少妇人妻无码精品视频| av一区二区人妻无码| 亚洲AV无码专区日韩| 中文亚洲AV片不卡在线观看| 亚洲日本欧美日韩中文字幕 |