Anxiety and stress has had an impact on my life recently and it is not until taking sociology that I realized the importance of how the mental illness greatly affects society. When I went to the doctor 's office for the first time to talk about my feelings of nervousness he told me that anxiety was a growing epidemic in this day and age. At first I did not really think about what he said, but looking back at that statement I wonder why in the United States, where the quality of living is better than a majority of other countries, has a higher anxiety rate that any other country in the world. Now, looking at anxiety and stress from a sociological perspective I learned that what I once saw as an individual problem is an issue world wide. Not
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The essay discusses the history of anxiety and how it shapes how society sees anxiety today, it discusses the problem of anxiety as a public issue, and it discusses the negative and positives causes from anxiety.
For many years humans were threatened by natural disasters, other animals, and not having enough food to survive. These threats caused a feeling of nervousness and worry that we perceive today as stress and anxiety. It has only been since recently that we consider anxiety to be a serious issue and call it a mental illness. Not only did people ignore the problem of anxiety, but women were punished because of the way anxiety made them act. During the Victorian and Early renaissance era women some women were considered crazy for panicking, but this behavior was caused from built up tension from staying inside without a job or a serious life purpose. During the civil war behavior from anxiety started to be taken more seriously, even though the solutions were harmful and only furthered the problem. Opium was used to treat “nerve weakness” during the war, so, the civil war had positive and negative affects …show more content…
You might not think that there are any positive effects on anxiety, but the people who create medicine towards anxiety make money, therapists profit, and any company that sells a product to relieve stress like books, videos, and objects that are used as stress relievers benefit too. Americans spend around 19 billion dollars on antidepressant medication every year, which goes to the pockets of drug companies (http://www.uncommonhelp.me/). Even though there are some benefits, overall a larger part of the population loses rather than wins from the situation. Anxiety costs the United States about forty-two billion dollars a year, which is about one third the cost of all mental illnesses (http://www.adaa.org/). The people of the United states have to pay more for health care because anxiety is becoming so common and so expensive. The onset of anxiety also has the harmful effect of making people in our society try to find quicker ways to solve stress and anxiety, like alcohol and drugs, but these solutions only make the problem worse. All in all more people suffer from the mental illness than benefit and as a society we do not benefit as a
The essay discusses the history of anxiety and how it shapes how society sees anxiety today, it discusses the problem of anxiety as a public issue, and it discusses the negative and positives causes from anxiety.
For many years humans were threatened by natural disasters, other animals, and not having enough food to survive. These threats caused a feeling of nervousness and worry that we perceive today as stress and anxiety. It has only been since recently that we consider anxiety to be a serious issue and call it a mental illness. Not only did people ignore the problem of anxiety, but women were punished because of the way anxiety made them act. During the Victorian and Early renaissance era women some women were considered crazy for panicking, but this behavior was caused from built up tension from staying inside without a job or a serious life purpose. During the civil war behavior from anxiety started to be taken more seriously, even though the solutions were harmful and only furthered the problem. Opium was used to treat “nerve weakness” during the war, so, the civil war had positive and negative affects …show more content…
You might not think that there are any positive effects on anxiety, but the people who create medicine towards anxiety make money, therapists profit, and any company that sells a product to relieve stress like books, videos, and objects that are used as stress relievers benefit too. Americans spend around 19 billion dollars on antidepressant medication every year, which goes to the pockets of drug companies (http://www.uncommonhelp.me/). Even though there are some benefits, overall a larger part of the population loses rather than wins from the situation. Anxiety costs the United States about forty-two billion dollars a year, which is about one third the cost of all mental illnesses (http://www.adaa.org/). The people of the United states have to pay more for health care because anxiety is becoming so common and so expensive. The onset of anxiety also has the harmful effect of making people in our society try to find quicker ways to solve stress and anxiety, like alcohol and drugs, but these solutions only make the problem worse. All in all more people suffer from the mental illness than benefit and as a society we do not benefit as a