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.

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