Can Anxiety Be Inherited? The Role of Genetics

Anxiety is caused by triggers; actions or events in life that cause your brain to go into hyperactive mode. But we haven’t considered the fact that anxiety could be genetic. 

Science has proven that anxiety actually can be genetic and inherited through generations. 

How Everyday Genes are Passed Down

We each have genes that are passed down from generations before us like hair color, eye color, height and so much more. 

These genes are passed down based on if they are dominant or recessive. If it is dominant it is more likely to be passed down to the next generation. If it is recessive, it will need two of the same recessive genes.

An example of this is if one parent has blue eyes and the other has brown. The genes will be split down to the next generation based on the more dominant allele in the parent.

The way normal genetics are passed through generations is relatively simple but this isn’t exactly the case for anxiety. It is a bit more complicated. 

How stress genetics are passed down

 Anxiety itself cannot be passed down, but the stress genetics can be. For example, if your mother has a genetic disorder that makes her stress levels react in a higher way, that can be passed down to you. But the difference is that your stress could be triggered by something different from your mother. It is not always linear. 

The way you react to a stressful situation is how you can tell if you have those stress genetics. 

I say “genetics” because the “anxiety” gene cannot be inherited as a single gene. It is a collection of different stresser genes put together. Just like the eye color gene pool we talked about above, this is similar, but it is a collection of different genes that are inherited that are clumped together to cause a reaction in the body known as anxiety. 

It’s kind of like an experiment. Think about it this way:

You are mixing ingredients together such as:

The combination of these genes when put into a big mixing bowl can blend within each other causing different reactions throughout the body, often resulting in what we call anxiety. 

Managing techniques

As there is no way to really know if you have these genetics or not, this is where you have to do the work to monitor yourself and your stress levels. 

Knowing what causes your stress levels to rise and fall as well as what triggers your fight-or-flight response is key to managing your anxiety levels.

The process can be tedious, as numerous factors contribute to bringing anxiety to the surface, particularly with the various stress-related genes interacting to trigger these reactions.

Making sure that you are staying active with your everyday life as well as being mindful and calm is a good start. 

Having good habits with your cleanliness and eating is another good step. The term “Look good, feel good.” comes into a play a lot with anxiety because when you and your surroundings look good and you feel like you look good, you tend to perform better in whatever tasks you are trying to accomplish. 

Remember, take life one day at a time and understand that anxiety does not control you. Just because you may have the genetics that can make up anxiety, doesn’t mean that it has to control your life. Your life is your own and you are in control

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