Category: "Panic Attacks Treatment"

Treating Anxiety Disorder The Right Way

Treating Anxiety Disorder The Right Way

If you’ve been experiencing episodes or extended periods of anxiety that are beginning to interfere with your life in serious ways—if you’re finding it hard to concentrate on your work or get enough sleep, if you feel constantly irritable and jumpy or possibly even depressed, if you find yourself trying to numb your fears with alcohol or drugs—it’s time to look for help. Your symptoms suggest that what you have goes beyond normal daily anxiety and that you may be suffering from anxiety disorder. Treating anxiety disorder is possible when know what is needed to be done.

Fortunately, anxiety disorder is highly treatable, but it’s quite likely you will need professional advice to locate the right treatment or combination of treatments for your situation.

The first step with any anxiety-related disorder should be to consult your physician in order to explore the possibility that your anxiety is caused by some organic illness or physical problem. Many conditions include anxiety among their symptoms or secondary effects, including epilepsy, sleep apnea, and Alzheimer’s. Anxiety is also a fairly common potential side of effect of a number of drugs and drug combinations. If any of these are the source of your anxiety, the treatment would need to take that into account.

Once a doctor has ruled out other causes, you may be left with the frustratingly vague diagnosis: “generalized anxiety disorder.” Some physicians might start you right out with anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medications, both of which have been found to be effective in helping people suffering from anxiety. Your doctor may recommend that you meet with a therapist or counselor who specializes in anxiety disorders before resorting to drug treatment or in conjunction with your medication. Most experts agree that the best results are achieved through a combination of psychological and pharmacological treatments.

In both of these areas there are several choices and possibilities. It may take some experimentation and some trial and error to find the particular medications, dosages, and therapeutic techniques that work best for you.

Medication is usually recommended as a first resort only for cases of severe anxiety disorder that is actually interfering with normal life. Drug therapy should be continued only as long as necessary, since the medications of choice also have undesirable side effects or can be quite addicting.

Two major classes of drugs are generally considered in treating anxiety disorder. The benzodiazapines are the most commonly prescribed. These are the “anti-anxiety” drugs—Xanax, Librium, Valium and Ativan. They tranquilize the body as well as the mind, and can have a sedative effect, in addition to being habit-forming. They work very quickly, however, and for milder cases can be used occasionally “on-demand.” A number of different anti-depressants are also used to treat anxiety. Most of them function by regulating the neurotransmitters serotonin and/or norepinephrine, chemicals in the brain thought to be linked to anxiety disorders. To be effective, anti-depressants need to be taken daily for extended periods.

Ideally, however, medications can be used to control your symptoms for only as long as you need while you develop some behavioral and cognitive techniques for managing your condition. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps patients develop new thought patterns that enable them to take control of and modify their feelings of anxiety. Patients can be taught to recognize and change the thought patterns and behaviors that arouse anxiety. Relaxation therapies such as yoga, a massage and progressive muscle relaxation have been demonstrated to reduce anxiety symptoms.

Analyzing and modifying the sources of stress in your life and environment can also play an important role in treating anxiety. If your life is too hectic, you consume too many stimulants (coffee, caffeinated sodas, even chocolate), you don’t exercise regularly, and your diet is unbalanced, you may be tipping yourself over the line from normal to excessive anxiety.

A combination of lifestyle changes and therapeutic training can enable many people to overcome anxiety without relying on drugs. It takes discipline and practice to maintain these treatment approaches, but the outcome of a life without constant anxiety makes them well worth the effort.

Desperate to find the absolute best Treating Anxiety Disorder Information? AlleviatePanicAttacks.com is one of many places to get PROVEN and SOUND Panic Attacks Help. Period.

Recognizing The Anxiety Disorder Symptom

Recognizing The Anxiety Disorder Symptom

Anxiety disorder is actually not one condition, but a group of six conditions that share many similarities—not the least of which is that their cause or causes are pretty much a mystery.

The first five conditions classified as “anxiety disorders” are:

  • panic attacks
  • obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • phobias (for instance, agoraphobia or fear of open spaces), and
  • social phobia.

Each of these has some particular distinguishing elements that set it apart and can be further categorized to have their own anxiety disorder symptoms. But some people who suffer from unusual degrees of worry or anxiety don’t fit into any of these categories. If their anxiety is severe enough to be considered an illness, they are likely to be diagnosed as suffering from “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” or GAD.

The determining factor in whether someone’s anxiety is severe enough to be called a disorder is largely a matter of degree. Everyone has anxieties—about money, relationships, job loss, their health. Anxiety is a perfectly normal response to the unavoidable demands of modern life. The person who never feels anxious is pretty abnormal, in fact.

But some people feel way too much anxiety. And most of the time their anxiety doesn’t seem to be related to any rational cause of concern. Other people do not react with the same intensity or length of concern that the person suffering from generalized anxiety disorder feels. But when you’re tense and worried, you may not have the perspective to know whether your worries are baseless or exaggerated. How can you tell if your fears are extreme enough to be considered a disorder?

Mental health specialists have assembled a checklist of the symptoms which indicate when a person’s anxiety level goes beyond what is considered normal and should be regarded as a mental health concern.

First of all, anxiety is considered to be excessive if you have these feelings almost every day for six months or longer, and if they center on more than one area of concern—you’re not just worrying about your health, but also about work, and school, and the weather, and the economy, etc.

  • Secondly, you can’t turn it off. No amount of rational thinking or distraction can disrupt the nagging preoccupation for long.
  • The anxiety is severe enough to interfere with your normal activities, making it hard for you to function and meet your responsibilities.
  • You also have had at least three of the following physical symptoms persistently for several months:
    • Difficulty sleeping
    • Difficulty concentrating or feeling mentally blank
    • Irritability
    • Extreme restlessness or jumpiness, feeling “on edge”
    • Fatigue
    • Muscular tension

Sometimes people with anxiety disorder don’t even worry about anything in particular—they just have a constant feeling that something is wrong or is going to go wrong. Relaxation becomes difficult or impossible, and a number of other physical symptoms can start to affect them—hot flashes, stomach disorders, headaches, breathlessness.

Taken to an extreme, these can lead beyond generalized anxiety into panic attack. But for many people the level of discomfort is manageable, and for the most part they get along all right from day to day. But even so, the quality and enjoyment of their lives is significantly impaired. Over time, generalized anxiety can lead to depression and substance abuse. In fact, both depression and anxiety have been linked to brain chemistry imbalances, and may be related illnesses.

In the United States alone, an estimated four million people are suffering from generalized anxiety disorder. Anxiety can be treated, however, if you are informed and know the symptoms. Particularly if you find that anxiety is making you depressed, contributing to drinking or drug problems, or causing suicidal thoughts, you should see a doctor for a thorough examination, diagnosis, and treatment. But if the checklist above fits your experience, don’t wait until you reach those extremes before seeking help.

Desperate to find the absolute best Natural Remedies for Panic Attacks? AlleviatePanicAttacks.com is one of many places to get PROVEN and SOUND Panic Attacks Help. Period.

Older Entries