Know Anxiety

Here at SpunOut we recognise the importance of looking after our mental health, and how difficult that can sometimes be. We all lead busy and fast-paced lives and often our mental health is neglected until it becomes a major problem.

One of the things that young people have been telling us is that they are experiencing high levels of anxiety and our fast paced life doesn’t help. Anxiety has loads of symptoms like the physical ones: shortness of breath, the palpitations, the butterflies in the stomach, and the mental ones like racing thoughts, and not being able to concentrate. However, most people find it difficult to recognise anxiety in themselves.

So we decided that it was time that we did an anxiety campaign so young people would be able to recognise, manage and minimise their anxiety.

#KnowAnxiety Campaign 2016

The campaign is called #KnowAnxiety. It’s an information campaign which aims to inform our readers about anxiety and how they recognise it in themselves, family or friends. We want them to learn how to manage their anxiety and how to minimise it so that they can lead healthy and happy lives.

We have created content on different types of anxiety such as General Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and phobias. You can also take part in our Anxiety quiz.

Check out more of our anxiety content below:

• Why do I feel anxious
• Alcohol and its impact on anxiety
• General Anxiety Disorder
• Social Anxiety Disorder
• Phobias
• 9 things you can do to manage anxiety
• Using breathing exercises to manage anxiety
• Put yourself to the test by taking our Know Anxiety quiz
• How to deal with exams when you have anxiety
• How to support someone with anxiety

You can also read our Real Life Stories from young people who have experienced anxiety themselves:

• Anxiety and me
• Anxiety isn’t always a monster
• Anxiety took away my friends
• My experience of anxiety
• Living with anxiety
• Top tips for dealing with social anxiety
• Today I went outside
• Using music to stay strong
• How I learned to cope with my anxiety

Speaking as ambassador for SpunOut.ie’s #KnowAnxiety campaign RTE presenter Eoghan McDermott told us about his own experience.