1 in 8 Brits 'living in fear'

London, Apr 14 (ANI): Britons are increasingly "living in fear", a situation that is making the economic crisis worse, mental health experts have said.

According to a new report from the Mental Health Foundation, levels of anxiety are on the rise in the UK.

Infact measures aimed at tackling crime and terrorism are failing to quell fears and could be adding to them, it said.

Official figures show around 800,000 more people in the UK now suffer from anxiety disorders than in 1993, reports The Scotsman.

As per a poll of 2,246 adults for the report In the Face of Fear, 77 per cent believed the world had become more frightening in the last ten years.

More than 37 per cent felt frightened or anxious more often than they used to while 77 per cent thought people generally were more scared than they used to be, the study found.

The study said: "New research suggests that we are becoming more fearful as a nation. Our survey emphatically indicates that people perceive our world as having become more frightening and frightened.

"The government's Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys, published in February 2009, show significant increases in anxiety disorders from 1993 to 2007. The Mental Health Foundation believes these trends are linked.

"The more fearful people feel in the general population, the more people will be tipped over into diagnosable anxiety disorders."

The Mental Health Foundation said that fear was partly driving the economic crisis, because emotion overrides logical thinking.

"Individuals and institutions - keen to protect themselves - are now too afraid to lend, spend and invest, despite the fact that these actions could assist in ending the recession," it said. (ANI)