All human beings experience fear, a necessary signal serving to protect us from real danger and to stimulate change and growth. Anxious feelings are a normal reaction to the stress of everyday contemporary life, and can benefit us by prompting us to prepare for an important performance, repair a relational conflict, or study diligently for an exam.
Anxiety becomes maladaptive when we develop an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations, or when we overreact to situations that do not pose real danger.
Anxiety disorders are distinguished from normal, everyday anxiety in that they are more intense, last longer, and can lead to phobias. Anxiety disorders are fairly common, and successful treatment includes an approach that addresses the self physically, emotionally, and mentally. Below are some prevalent anxiety disorders and their treatment.
Below are some specific types of Anxiety Disorders:
Panic Disorder: People with panic disorder experience a period of intense fear in the absence of real danger that strikes suddenly and builds to a peak rapidly. Often there is a sense of imminent danger, impending doom, and an intense desire to flee from wherever the panic attack is occurring. Symptoms include pounding heart, chest pains, lightheadedness or dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, trembling or shaking, choking, sweating, depersonalization, numbness or tingling, chills or hot flushes, a feeling of going out of control or going crazy, and fear of dying.
Phobias: Phobias are irrational fears that lead people to altogether avoid specific things or situations that trigger intense anxiety. For example, social phobia is an intense, persistent fear of social or performance situations in which dread of embarrassment is prevalent. Agoraphobia is the fear of being in any situation that might trigger a panic attack and from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing. Phobias can take a multitude of forms, such as fear of animals, blood, injections, injury, or thunder storms. The person recognizes that their fear is excessive or irrational, but finds that the fearful avoidance interferes significantly with their normal activities and/or relationships. Many of the physical symptoms that accompany panic attacks – such as racing heart, sweating, and trembling – also occur with phobias.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: While everyone worries some in anticipation of real events occurring, some people experience excessive unwarranted worry and anxiety. They may find themselves unable to control the apprehensive expectation of something bad happening. Many with generalized anxiety disorder report that they have felt anxious and nervous all their lives, and this condition makes it difficult to keep worrisome thoughts from interfering with everyday activities. Symptoms include tension, irritability, restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge, trouble falling or staying asleep, headaches, sweating, trembling, twitching, and muscle aches or soreness.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: In this condition a person recognizes at some point that their obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive actions are excessive and unreasonable, and are time-consuming and distressing enough to cause impairment in their life. Obsessions are recurring ideas, thoughts, images or impulses that cause anxiety, and have an intrusive and inappropriate quality. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors such as hand washing, checking, ordering, or counting, that are done in most cases to reduce the anxiety of an obsession, not for pleasure.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: PTSD can result from exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving actual or threatened death or serious injury to oneself or another person. Terrifying experiences that may result in PTSD include rape, military combat, kidnapping, childhood abuse, natural disasters, or serious accidents such as airplane crashes. Symptoms that are common to PTSD are flashbacks, nightmares, a general emotional numbing, rage, depression, persistent anxiety, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, and hyper-vigilance.
Treatment for Anxiety Disorders
Recovering from an anxiety disorder with a skilled, trusted therapist may involve:
1. Reducing physical symptoms, utilizing an array of stress reduction and relaxation exercises, imagery techniques, and developing a consistent physical exercise routine.
2. Discovering and processing the underlying source of anxiety to facilitate the elimination of persistent avoidance tendencies.
3. Changing unhealthy thought patterns, beliefs, and attitudes that contribute to the perpetuation of the anxiety disorder through cognitive therapies. Learning to desensitize the event or situation associated with anxious feelings.
Treatment for anxiety disorders may include a combination of psychotherapy, medication and/or supplements.