Anxiety disorders

Occasional anxiety is a normal part of life. For example, you may feel anxious or worried for your job interview, before taking a test or before making an important decision. During times like these, feeling anxious can be perfectly normal. However for a person with anxiety disorder it’s more than just a temporary fear or worry, they feel like that most of the time and these worries are intense, persistent and interfere with their normal lives.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Different anxiety disorders have various symptoms. This also means that each type of anxiety disorder has its own treatment plan. The most common anxiety disorders include:

• Panic Disorder. Characterized by panic attacks—sudden feelings of terror—sometimes striking repeatedly and without warning. Often mistaken for a heart attack, a panic attack causes powerful, physical symptoms including chest pain, heart palpitations, dizziness, shortness of breath and stomach upset.

• Most people with specific phobias have several triggers. To avoid panicking, someone with specific phobias will work hard to avoid their triggers. Depending on the type and number of triggers, this fear and the attempt to control it can seem to take over a person’s life.

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). GAD produces chronic, exaggerated worrying about everyday life. This can consume hours each day, making it hard to concentrate or finish routine daily tasks. A person with GAD may become exhausted by worry and experience headaches, tension or nausea.

• Social Anxiety Disorder. Unlike shyness, this disorder causes intense fear, often driven by irrational worries about social humiliation–“saying something stupid,” or “not knowing what to say.” Someone with social anxiety disorder may not

Symptoms of anxiety

• Excessive worry or obsessive thoughts (often about everyday things even if there is little or no reason)
• Difficulty relaxing
• Restlessness or feeling on edge
• Fatigue
• Difficulty concentrating; your mind “going blank”
• Irritability
• Muscle tension or muscle aches
• Trembling, feeling twitchy or being easily startled
• Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
• Sweating, nausea or diarrhea
• Shortness of breath or rapid heartbeat
• Avoidance of activities as a means of reducing distress

Causes

Anxiety sometimes runs in families, but no one knows for sure why some family members have it while others don’t. Researchers have found that several parts of the brain, as well as biological processes, play a key role in fear and anxiety. By learning more about how the brain and body function in people with anxiety disorders, researchers may be able to create better treatments. Researchers are also looking for ways in which stress and environmental factors play a role.

Treatment

Once an Anxiety attacks starts, there is very little that you can do to stop them completely. They’re a reaction that your body has that is somewhat beyond your control. They can be prevented, and their severity can be lessened, but they are very hard to stop.

Reducing its severity has to do with reacting correctly to the symptoms. Remember – the physical symptoms you experience are very real, and very disruptive. But they’re not related to any health problem, and solely a result of your anxiety. If you believe you feel an anxiety attack coming or you’re certain you’re in the middle of the one, try the following:

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is very useful in treating anxiety disorders. The cognitive part helps people change the thinking patterns that support their fears, and the behavioral part helps people change the way they react to anxiety-provoking situations.

For example, CBT can help people with panic disorder learn that their panic attacks are not really heart attacks and help people with social phobia learn how to overcome the belief that others are always watching and judging them.

When people are ready to confront their fears, they are shown how to use exposure techniques to desensitize themselves to situations that trigger their anxieties.

Medication

Doctors may also prescribe medication to help treat GAD. Your doctor will work with you to find the best medication and dose for you. Different types of medication can be effective in GAD:

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
• Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)
• Other serotonergic medication
• Benzodiazepines

Doctors commonly use SSRIs and SNRIs to treat depression, but they are also helpful for the symptoms of GAD. They may take several weeks to start working. These medications may also cause side effects, such as headaches, nausea, or difficulty sleeping. These side effects are usually not severe for most people, especially if the dose starts off low and is increased slowly over time. Talk to your doctor about any side effects that you have.

Buspirone is another serotonergic medication that can be helpful in GAD. Buspirone needs to be taken continuously for several weeks for it to be fully effective.

Benzodiazepines, which are sedative medications, can also be used to manage severe forms of GAD. These medications are powerfully effective in rapidly decreasing anxiety, but they can cause tolerance and dependence if you use them continuously. Therefore, your doctor will only prescribe them for brief periods of time if you need them