Anxiety and fear can manifest in several ways. The heart may beat faster, breathing may change, muscles may tense, and the stomach may react. Sometimes there is a clear threat. Sometimes the anxiety is about something that might happen. It can also be triggered by work, housing, finances, a close relationship, illness, or the state of the world. 1177 describes anxiety as an automatic reaction to a perceived threat. This reaction cannot be controlled by willpower alone. At the same time, it is influenced by what life is like right now and by the situations the person finds themselves in.
This is an important starting point for this chapter. Anxiety is neither merely a thought nor merely a social problem. It is felt in the body, interpreted by a person, and arises in specific situations. A sociological analysis cannot, therefore, replace a medical or psychological assessment. It can, however, examine factors that are easily overlooked when all attention is focused on the individual’s thoughts and reactions: precarious working conditions, housing problems, conflicts, status demands, social expectations, lack of time, discrimination, technological overstimulation, and real societal risks.
The goal is not to prove whether the anxiety is rational or irrational. The goal is to understand what it is connected to. Sometimes the threat assessment is exaggerated, and avoidance keeps the anxiety alive. Sometimes the body is responding to real vulnerability or prolonged pressure. Often, multiple processes are occurring simultaneously. The psychological question “What is happening in the mind and body?” and the sociological question “What is happening in the situation, relationships, and institutions?” must then be asked together.
When self-help isn’t the right place to start
This chapter is not a guide to treating anxiety disorders. Contact a health center if your anxiety makes it difficult to manage daily life, sleep, or concentrate; if you start avoiding places or people to the point that your life becomes restricted; or if you turn to alcohol, drugs, gambling, or self-harm to cope. Call 1177 if you need advice on where to seek care. If the situation feels unbearable or if you are planning to take your own life, seek emergency psychiatric help or call 112.
Before doing an exercise, you can ask yourself three questions: Am I safe enough to observe this? Do I have enough energy for this task? Is it really up to me to take responsibility for and change what’s weighing on me? A “no” doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It may mean that you first need rest, help from someone else, a change in circumstances, or professional support.
Anxiety as a Personal Concern and a Social Issue
C. Wright Mills developed the concept of the sociological imagination. He sought to demonstrate how a person’s biography is intertwined with the historical era in which they live. A biography is the life that a specific person has lived. History consists of the larger societal changes taking place before, during, and after that life. The connection between them makes it possible to distinguish a private concern from a social issue without separating them entirely.
If a person is afraid of losing their job, that anxiety is personal: it affects their income, daily life, and future. But at the same time, that anxiety can be shaped by temporary employment, an economic downturn, technological change, or the structure of social safety nets. When many people in similar situations share the same fear, there is reason to look beyond their individual thought patterns. This does not mean that the societal explanation alone provides the answer. It means that the individual’s experience is placed in context.
This connection can provide relief. The question becomes not only “What’s wrong with me that I’m worried?” but also “What conditions have made it particularly difficult to feel secure in this situation?” Relief, however, is not the same as fatalism. If everything is explained by society, one’s own capacity for action can disappear from the analysis. Mill’s perspective is best used when it both highlights limitations and opens up multiple possible levels of action.
Anxiety often develops as a process
Leonard Pearlman and his colleagues described stress as a process rather than a single event. Among other things, they distinguished between primary stressors and secondary stressors. A primary stressor is the initial source of stress, such as job insecurity, illness, or conflict. Secondary stressors arise when the initial stressor spreads to other areas of life. Financial insecurity, for example, can lead to conflicts at home, sleep problems, and difficulties fulfilling other roles.
The stress process also involves resources and social support. Resources can include money, knowledge, time, rights, or the practical ability to influence outcomes. Social support can involve someone who listens, helps with a task, shares responsibility, or accompanies the person to a medical appointment. Two people may therefore experience similar events but face different consequences depending on the resources, relationships, and institutional protections they have access to.
This clarifies the connection between the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. At the micro-level are the body’s reaction and the individual’s interpretation. At the meso level are “ ” relationships, workplaces, schools, and other organizations. At the macro level are laws, economic conditions, welfare systems, and societal changes. The macro level does not directly affect the body as an invisible force. Its influence is mediated through work schedules, decisions, spaces, resources, relationships, and recurring situations.
Living conditions are not just background noise
The Public Health Agency of Sweden and the World Health Organization describe health as being influenced by the conditions in which people are born, grow up, live, work, and age. This includes social relationships and lifestyle habits, as well as education, finances, housing, working conditions, access to healthcare, and society’s overall distribution of resources. These factors interact with one another. A habit is therefore not always a free choice. The ability to sleep, exercise, eat regularly, or recover is influenced by work schedules, housing, caregiving responsibilities, and finances.
For those who feel anxious, this is important for two reasons. First, this analysis can reduce unwarranted self-blame. Second, it can show that different problems require different kinds of responses. A stressful voicemail message might be resolved immediately. Job insecurity often requires dialogue, negotiation, union support, or political decisions. An abusive relationship requires safety-focused help, not just better emotional regulation.
The feeling and the rule about the feeling
Arlie Hochschild studied emotional rules. An emotional rule is a social expectation regarding what a person should feel, how intense that feeling may be, and how it should be expressed. An employee may be expected to remain calm and friendly even when she is being treated poorly. A parent may feel that anxiety must be concealed so as not to burden the children. In other settings, intense anxiety can be a sign of responsibility and vigilance. The rule is not the emotion itself. It is the perception of the environment and the individual regarding how the emotion should be.
Hochschild’s concept helps us distinguish between three things: what the body feels, how the person interprets the emotion, and what the situation requires her to show. When these three pull in different directions, emotional labor can arise. Emotional labor refers to the effort to change, suppress, amplify, or display an emotion so that it fits the demands of the situation. Such labor may be necessary, but it can also be exhausting.
The main script’s emotional analysis is based on the same fundamental idea: emotions should not be categorized solely as private states. One can examine which interactions, status changes, expectations, and social narratives give the emotion a specific form. The analysis should not dismiss the body. It should make it possible to see whether an additional layer of anxiety is created by the thought that one shouldn’t be anxious.
The body is always in a situation
A physical reaction can be described medically and simultaneously examined sociologically. The sociological question is not whether a racing heart is “actually social.” The question is in which spaces, in the presence of which people, at what pace, and under what material conditions the reaction most often becomes stronger or weaker.
Erving Goffman demonstrated how people adapt their performances to the situation and the audience. An audience does not have to be a large group. It could be a boss, a school class, a partner, or people on a digital platform. When one is afraid of being judged, the audience’s presence can alter one’s posture, voice, attention, and bodily tension. The same body may react differently when the person is alone, with a trusted individual, or in a room where she has less power.
The space and the objects in it also play a role. Sound, light, crowding, phones, modes of transportation, the placement of doors, and the ability to leave a situation can influence how threatening it is perceived to be. This does not mean that every body signal can be explained in social terms. It means that the specific situation is part of the information needed.
Ontological security: everyday life you can rely on
Anthony Giddens used the concept of ontological security to describe a fundamental sense of continuity and trust in everyday life. The concept is not about being certain that nothing dangerous can happen. It is about life being predictable enough for a person to act without having to reevaluate every moment from scratch.
Routines can support this security. A regular meal, a set time to connect with someone, a simple way to end the workday, or a procedure for seeking help can reduce the number of uncertain decisions. But a routine can also become a form of avoidance or a compulsion. The difference lies in what the routine accomplishes. A supportive routine makes daily life more manageable. A safety ritual that must be repeated constantly to prevent a catastrophe from occurring can instead intensify anxiety and needs to be assessed with professional support.
Real societal risks require the right level of action
Concerns about war, economic crises, or climate change do not necessarily stem from an imagined danger. 1177 describes concern about the state of the world as normal. The main script uses climate risk to illustrate why a psychological and sociological analysis sometimes need to be combined. The physical reaction may need to be calmed. At the same time, the problem may require institutional and collective action.
Research on environmental justice also shows that environmental risks and opportunities to influence them are unevenly distributed. An individual may have limited power over the processes that create the anxiety. In such cases, it is important not to transform a societal responsibility into a private demand for perfect consumption or constant activity.
A gentle sociological framing of the anxiety
A gentle sociological formulation is a temporary and testable working hypothesis. It is not a diagnosis and not an identity. The formulation should be broad enough to encompass a situation, at most two mechanisms, and one resource, yet narrow enough to be practical.
ABT can serve as a compass here without becoming a test. Four dimensions are often relevant: body, time, complexity, and risk. Body refers to physical conditions and reactions. Time concerns anxiety about the future, pace, and opportunities for recovery. Complexity concerns how multiple causes and levels can interact. Risk concerns the balance between a life that shrinks due to avoidance and risk-taking that lacks security or support. You do not need to work with all four. Choose no more than two to four dimensions that clarify the current situation.
Action on Multiple Levels
At the individual and environmental levels, the next step might be to change a routine, limit a specific stimulus, seek information in a more focused way, or request a care assessment. At the relational level, it might involve asking someone to listen, sharing a task, or having someone accompany you to an appointment. At the organizational and institutional levels, it might involve discussing work hours, the work environment, your academic situation, housing, discrimination, or access to support with the person who actually has the authority to address these issues.
It is not necessary to take action at every level. The best first step toward change is one that is safe, feasible, and relevant to the situation you have described. If your anxiety increases, your ability to function in daily life deteriorates, or you begin to feel less safe, you should pause the exercises and seek other help.
Concept Overview
Sociological imagination: connecting one’s own life story to historical changes and social conditions.
Personal concerns and social issues: two levels that can coexist within the same problem.
Stress process: how an initial stressor can create subsequent stressors through roles, resources, and relationships.
Emotional regulation: a social expectation of what a person should feel and express.
Emotional labor: the effort to adapt a feeling or emotional expression to the demands of a situation.
Ontological security: a fundamental trust that everyday life has sufficient continuity to allow for action.
Soft sociological formulation: a provisional and testable explanation that links the situation, mechanisms, resources, and next steps.