Have you ever worried about well-being of your family? Health? Job? Money? Status? Who hasn’t, right? These are common issues we all face and worry from time to time. Anxiety is a healthy emotion and experiencing it is a normal part of life. It can help you to stay focused, keep you in action, and inspire you to resolve issues. However, people with anxiety disorders have excessive worry and intense fear about everyday situations. People with this condition are “over-worrying” about a lot of issues, and have no control over the associated anxiety. Anxiety disorders is a kind of mental health problem that lead to excessive nervousness, fear, anxiety, and worry.
These disorders defines how a person develops emotions, also causing physical symptoms. Mild anxiety might be unclear and unsettling, while severe anxiety may seriously affect everyday living. It can interfere with your ability to relax or sleep well and can be alarming. It may cause you to stop doing things you enjoy. In extreme cases, it may prevent you from entering an elevator, crossing the street, speaking in public or even leaving your home. It may cause constant worry over everything. If your loved one don’t call you back within few hour, you start worrying that you did something wrong and your loved one is upset with you. If you are waiting for your family members and they are late and you are not able to contact them– you may start to fear the worst that they may be in an accident, instead of thinking something as they got stuck in traffic. If not taken steps to treat, the anxiety will keep getting worse. It generally occur between childhood and middle age but it can occur at any point of life.
What are the major types of anxiety disorders?
Anxiety is a mother of several different disorders. These include:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder: is an anxiety disorder where persons feels anxious in trivial situations along with physical symptoms like tremors, feeling of heartbeat racing, excessive sweating, headache etc.
- Panic disorder: An anxiety disorder which is characterized by unexpected and repeated episodes of anxiety with a feeling of impending death or doom. This is associated with chest pain, increase heart rates, and shortness of breath, distress and dizziness. People often rush to a hospital to have an ECG and cardiac checkup which comes normal.
- Phobia: Excessive fear of a specific object, situation, or activity. A person may go to great lengths to avoid it, for example, having an injection, heights or travelling on a plane. There are many different types of phobias during which the person experiences irresistible physical sensations like pounding heart, nausea, faintness, dizziness, chest pain, sweating, and hot or cold flushes.
- Social anxiety disorder: is characterized by overwhelming anxiety in everyday social situations. It may include fear of speaking to authority figures or in public, eating or drinking in front of others or may be so broad that a person experiences symptoms almost anytime if other people are around them.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): In this type of disorder, Anxiety follows a traumatic event. This could be some serious accident, physical or sexual assault, or natural disasters such as earthquake or floods. People often get nightmares associated with these traumatic events and often avoid visiting or going to the place of traumatic event,
What are the Symptoms?
As people feel different tastes for same food depending on the person eating it, People may feel different type of Anxiety depending on the person experiencing it. If you are suffering from Anxiety Disorder, you just can’t jiggle your concerns about anything and everything and the severity of the condition may come and go. Anxiety feelings can range from butterflies in your stomach to a racing heart. You might feel like there is disconnect between your mind and body.
In addition to the primary symptom of excessive and irrational fear and worry, you might be experiencing some of the following signs and symptoms:
- Excessive worry
- Anticipating the worst
- Forgetfulness or Difficulty concentrating or focusing on things
- Inability to stay relaxed or enjoy quiet time
- Avoiding stressful situations
- No tolerance for uncertainty – needing to know what is going to happen and how it is going to happen
- Intrusive thoughts of things that cause you to worry – even when you try to stop thinking about them
- Feeling like you can’t control your emotions and constant worry – nothing you do helps you to relax
- Inability to fall asleep or fragmented sleep
- Feeling jumpy, on edge, or restless
- Trembles or shakes
- Sweating and dry mouth
- Having difficulty breathing and/or feeling like you are choking
Treatments for Anxiety
Effective treatment helps in learning the methods to control your anxiety. The type of treatment depend on the type of anxiety experienced. Some people find that medication alone can be helpful in the treatment of Anxiety Disorders, while others are more likely to benefit from psychotherapy. By Engaging in certain Self-help activities one can ease anxiety and promote a healthier lifestyle.
Self-help Activities: These include
- Stress management and Relaxation techniques: include meditation, deep breathing exercises, long baths, and yoga.
- Exercises to build positive thoughts: Make a list of the negative thoughts that might be cycling as a result of anxiety, and write down another list next to it containing positive, believable thoughts to replace them.
- Support network: Talk with friends, relatives, family members who are supportive.
- Eating a healthy, well balanced diet
Psychotherapy: Also known as talking therapy can help you change your thinking patterns so you’re able to keep your anxiety under control and reduce irrational worries.There are different types of effective psychological treatments available for anxiety.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT): CBT is unlike lay advice given by your friends or family. It can only done by psychiatrist or psychologist. CBT is a structured psychological treatment which recognises that the way we think (cognition) and act (behaviour) affects the way we feel. Once patterns are recognized that are contributing to anxiety, efforts are make to replace these with new ones that reduce anxiety and improve coping skills.
Medication for Anxiety: Medication may help relieve anxiety symptoms which interfere with your ability to function.
Consult your psychiatrist as to which is the best option for you before starting any treatment.
