Anxiety disorder is a condition where one's mind is filled with unfounded, baseless and unrealistic fears and worries. Anxiety disorders can range from a relatively mild concern of an event like first date to a chronic fear of standing in a crowd that occurs repeatedly. Anxiety disorders can affect people in any age group. An estimated 13% of Americans are believed to suffer from one of these disorders. According to the National Institute Of Mental Health, roughly 19 millions of the adults in the United States have anxiety disorders.
Types of Anxiety Disorders:
There are many types of anxiety disorders. Though all the disorders have an affinity to excessive groundless fear and flimsy worries, every single type of anxiety has its own distinctive features and characteristics. The different types of anxiety disorders can be broadly classified as follows:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):
Generalized anxiety disorder is the constant abnormal worry, tension and concern of the day to day existence. For no apparent reasons, a person would be in an exaggerated state of worry as if an impending danger or disaster is about to happen. People with this disorder cannot shake off the sense of brooding, even if they realize that such feelings are gratuitous. GAD comes along with physical symptoms like headache, chest pain, trembling, twitching, muscle aches, vomiting, nausea, irritability, stomachaches, hot flashes and sweating. This disorder affects about 4 million adults, with the number of women almost double of the men in the United States alone. GAD mainly strikes between childhood and middle age. It generally occurs along with other disorders.
Panic Disorder:
Panic disorder is characterized by sudden and unexpected bouts of intense fear and panic building up in the mind of a person. Panic attack usually hit a person out of the blue without any warning. A person under the spell of a panic attack would have fears like he is about to die or he has a heart failure and other fears on similar lines. It may happen any time, even in your sleep. The attack is accompanied by symptoms like dizziness, shortness of breath, tingling feeling and numbness. It affects about 2.4 million Americans with men numbering half the figure of women. Panic disorder is related to alcoholism, drug addiction and a serious condition called Agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is a condition where patients religiously avoid a place where the panic attack occurred due to the fear of the attack happening again.
Social Anxiety Disorder:
Social anxiety disorder is the acute fear of social situations due to overwhelming self-consciousness. People who suffer from social phobia have a constant and nagging worry and doubt that they are being judged and ridiculed by everyone around them. They look and act extremely foolish and shy when they are in a social gathering like parties, business meetings, dinner etc. People with the disorder are aware that the worry is groundless, but they still succumb to it. Sometimes people stop going for class or office due to the phobia. Symptoms include blushing, sweating profusely, trembling etc. It affects about 5.3 million Americans.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:
Obsessive compulsive disorder is the culmination of obsessive thoughts and impulses that you have no control over and the compulsive rituals you do to forget the obsessions. A person gets extremely worried about certain things in life, like getting infected with germs, leaving the stove open etc. When these worries keep occurring, they indulge in rituals like washing hands repeatedly and checking the stove whenever they go out of the house. They know that such thoughts are silly, but they keep doing the rituals. There are around 3.3 million Americans with the disorder. It is seen that almost one-third of the adults get the disorders in their childhood.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Posttraumatic stress disorder is a condition of anxiety that relates to traumatic and terrific incidents in the past. When a person undergoes frightening accidents or violence like rape, gunfights, abuse and other life threatening disasters like flood, earthquake, hurricane etc., he is bound to experience constant nightmares, worries, flashbacks, stress and other traumatic thoughts. After such incidents people become violent, moody and aggressive at times. It is often accompanied with depression, substance abuse and other anxiety disorders. PTSD is believed to run in the family. And it is found that women are more prone to get this traumatic disorder.
Specific Phobias:
Specific phobias are fears that related to specific things and situations that have little or no fear factors. Some people are afraid of insects and animals, while others are frightened of flying, heights, water, driving, escalators etc. These people do their best to avoid a thing or a situation that brings out the fear in them. Specific phobias are generally ingrained during the childhood stage of a person. Sometimes it takes years and decades for a person to get over the phobias that has been developed in his childhood and adolescent days. Around 6.3 million Americans have this disorder.
Causes:
Anxiety disorders has no one reason or cause. There are many factors that can lead to a person getting one of the anxiety disorders. The reasons may be genetics, brain biochemistry, overactive responses, life situations and ingrained behavior.
Treatment:
Many ways and methods have been developed through research to treat anxiety disorder effectively. Basically, there are two types of treatment for anxiety disorders- medication and psychotherapy.
Medications:
Doctors and physicians prescribe certain medications for anxiety disorder patients. The medications may not cure the disorder fully but they can be of great help in reducing the symptoms of the disorder. The various medications available for anxiety disorders are:
- Antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, Tricyclics and Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or MAOIs.
- Benzodiazepines like Xanax (alprazolam), clonazepam and lorazepam
- Azipirones like buspirone.
- Beta-blockers like propanolol.
Psychotherapy:
Under this method of treatment, the patient would need to consult with psychiatrists, counselors, psychologists and other social volunteers to recover from anxiety disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most prominent method of psychotherapy to deal with anxiety disorders. CBT takes into account the cognitive aspects i.e. the thinking ability and the behavioral factors like reaction to situations of the patient to help in the recovery process. It generally lasts for around 12 weeks. |
