Mental Health 101: Anxiety

Our Seeding Resillience program has begun and we are working to provide more awareness about mental health and to learn skills to become more fully functioning. Each Friday from 2-3 we offer a skill share for folk to learn about health skills and stress reduction. While you may be aware that stress is something that many people in cities deal with, regardless of employment status, you might not know much about anxiety.

Severe and generalized anxiety affects 5-20% of individuals in the United States, and is classified 13 different ways by mental health professionals ranging from Post Traumatic Stress Dissorder (PTSD) to phobias to panic attacks.


Common symptoms include: worry, restlessness, difficulty concentrating, irritability, sleep problems, feeling "keyed up" or "on edge," or becoming easily fatigued. Physical symptoms can also include muscle tension.

Providing skill shares where people can talk about how they respond to anxiety, worry and fear is one way that people with stable housing can find commonalities with others who are marginally housed or homeless. While not everyone knows what it feels like to have severe or chronic mental health issues, or to have to struggle each day to acquire the basics, everyone at some time or another has felt afraid or worried.

We're hoping that by creating a safe space for people to talk about how they respond to their fears and worries and work on self care and harm reduction will help people become healthier and better connected to their community.

In addition to the Friday Health and Stress Reduction skill share (from 2-3pm) we are also working on creating a book club, PTSD care opportunities, art therapy skill shares and peer lead support groups talking about addiction recovery and vetrans issues.

If you're interested in becoming more involved, leading a group or just want to learn more, email megan.rohrer@sfdph.org.

For those who are out of town or who want to learn more skills right now, check out these skills and techniques for whole body (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) self care for ideas about how to reduce stress and anxiety. And like all things that are suggestions on health issues, check with your doctor and give more weight to the methods that are a better fit with your life, body and ability.