Anxiety

Girl looking scared, suffering from anxiety

Anxiety is distress or uneasiness of mind cause by fear of danger or misfortune. Very often, people with anxiety also feel worries. There can also be physical symptoms, like having a headache or an upset stomach.

Anxiety is a very common human emotion and is often associated with fear, panic, and the fight or flight response. The amount of stress needed to cause anxiety will very from person to person however, basics include: losing one's job, the death of a loved one, or an accident to name a few. In most people, anxiety will settle over time and one will return to normal state.

Some people suffer a lot of anxiety over a long period of time which controls them and makes their lives difficult. These conditions are called anxiety disorders and can be treated by therapy and medicine.

General anxiety is a disorder in which the victim is constantly worried or fearful about situations or things that normally wouldn’t bother them or others. When this continual anxious state starts to interfere with their social, family and work life, and prevents them functioning in a normal fashion, they may be said to have a General Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

General anxiety symptoms are things such as; continual tiredness / exhaustion, inability to relax, lack of confidence, low self-esteem, fear of public places, fear of socializing, frequent feelings of irrational anxiety / fear, compulsive behavior, worrying about making mistakes, regular nightmares, disturbed sleep patterns, excessive crying, headaches, stomach problems, diarrhea, nausea, aching muscles, and so on.

Symptoms of anxiety attacks are things like; sweating, shaking and tremors, palpitations, shortness of breath, hyperventilating, racing heart beat, tingling in hands and feet, feeling of impending doom, feeling you are having a heart attack. There are more, but these are the usual ones.

Medicine

These symptoms, more or less, define anxiety but they can also be signs of other problems, so your first port of call has to be your doctor or other health care professional. They will be able to define what your problem is exactly, and propose the appropriate treatment. Since the theme of this article is defining anxiety, we’ll assume that your doctor has diagnosed you with anxiety…

A doctor’s first line treatment is usually through drug-based medication; for example antidepressants, anti-anxiety tablets and beta blockers. These can be very effective, but they all have their side effects, some worse than others. This can tend to put folks off continuing with them. However, no matter how bad you feel, never, ever discontinue treatment unless advised by your doctor to do so.

Other non-drug therapies are becoming popular such as; self-hypnosis, meditation, yoga, cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, acupuncture, etc. These are therapies to help you ‘manage’ or ‘cope’ with your anxiety and / or anxiety attacks.

But what about the underlying cause(s) of anxiety? The two treatment types above focus on either reducing the symptoms of anxiety, or, helping you cope with your disorder. They don’t seem to do anything about the underlying condition(s) that are causing your anxiety.

And the very ‘fear’ of another anxiety attack can bring one on. As long as this irrational fear exists it’s very difficult to stop attacks and resolve your general anxiety. If you can eliminate this fear, you can prevent further attacks and get rid of your general anxiety much more effectively.

Anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders are any sort of disorder caused by a major amount of anxiety. There are many different disorders, each of which may be diagnosed by a trained professional. Examples of such disorders are

• Fear of certain animals: Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders
• Fear of certain situations: Agoraphobia is the fear of crowds (and of not being able to get away easily), Acrophobia is the fear of heights
• Generalized ones, such as Post-traumatic stress disorder (which occurs in people who have often been exposed to stressful situations, such as wars).

References

Anxiety Resources
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