The Student Room Group
Reply 1
No... anxious people can't handle stress they just panic...
I have pretty bad anxiety and it's difficult to say whether I handle stress better or not. My anxiety tends to take hold of me in social situations, but when it comes to coping with things like coursework or everyday tasks then I handle stress really well when compared to other people.

So I suppose the nature of the anxiety dictates the kind of stress a person can handle. If someone has a panic attack when they don't usually then I don't know, because surely they would have to have major anxiety over something to trigger that response and therefore would be classified as having the onset of anxiety.
Reply 3
The only way I can imagine that an anxious person would handle panic attacks better is that they would know what was happening to them, and the experience wouldn't push them even further.

I once had a panic attack (eh, don't ask, bad situation) and I actually thought I was going to die. It was really scary. I had no idea what it was, so I thought I was poisoned or having a heart attack, and I think that made it worse.

If I had experienced it before, I would have known that it was just a panic attack, not death, and it probably wouldn't have lasted as long or come back.
Reply 4
Anxious people might understand what is happening to them, but won't control themselves. As a fairly calm person, I'd say I don't really get stress. Oxford offer coming, I was out on the piss having fun. GCSEs, I was on holiday enjoying it.

Anxious people tend to think pessamistically, conciously think they can't do it, yet also deep down think they can. This'll cause a lot of stress. They really care about what is happening, and thinking of a problem you can't solve will stress you out.
Thery are uncertain of what is going on around that scares them...
Reply 6
Revenged
No... anxious people can't handle stress they just panic...

*hands up* Me in a nutshell. No we can't handle stress.
I used to ahve terrible panic attacks under stress, and when I got emotional, so I wouldn't have said they handle stress better at all.

I'm much better now though :smile:
Reply 8
Revd. Mike
I'm much better now though :smile:


What did you do to combat it? I'm thinking I should do something before the A2 exams start.
Reply 9
horrorboy
Than people who don't really get anxious? Say if someone suddenly had a panic attack that doesn't usually do you think they would be able to handle stress as well as someone with anxiety who is used to it?

The answer would be yes and no :p: because it would depend what the anxiety sufferer gets anxious about.
Usually a anxiety sufferer worrys alot about certain things in particular but then is perfectly normal with handling situations that dont trigger there anxiety off.
As for panic attacks i would say a person use to it would handle it alot better than someone whos having one for there first time.