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Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
By: http://www.ivillagehealth.com/
Anxiety can be healthy and normal. In fact, stress reactions are essential for human survival; they enable people to pursue important goals and respond appropriately to danger. If you've ever felt your heart race when a speeding car careened your way or experienced several days of anxious feelings when facing a deadline or challenge, you've felt the normal stress response of "fight, fright, or flight." These feelings are used as a spur for appropriate action — to get out of the way of that reckless driver or put in extra effort on that important project at home or work.
Anxiety disorders, however, while they may provoke similar frightful feelings, can have the opposite effect. Unhealthy anxiety is excessive or inappropriate stress responses that leave you with feelings of apprehension, uncertainty, and fear, and that can inappropriately paralyze you into inaction or withdrawal. An anxiety disorder isn't just a case of "nerves." More than 25 million Americans experience this illness, which is the most common psychiatric condition in the U.S.
Anxiety is expressed physically through a series of responses such as:
- a rise in blood pressure
- a fast heart rate
- rapid breathing
- an increase in muscle tension
- a decrease in intestinal blood flow, sometimes resulting in nausea or diarrhea
Without treatment, an anxiety disorder can significantly disrupt your life as symptoms usually become progressively worse. Tormented by panic attacks, irrational thoughts and fears, compulsive behaviors or rituals, flashbacks, nightmares, or countless frightening physical symptoms, people with anxiety disorders are heavy users of emergency rooms and other medical services. Their work, family and social lives are disrupted, and some even become housebound. Many of them have other disorders such as depression, alcohol or drug abuse, or other mental disorders. Fortunately, treatment for anxiety disorders is, in general, very effective, and identifying one early may help you prevent depression. Yet, because of widespread lack of understanding and the stigma associated with these disorders, only about 25 percent of those who experience this problem are diagnosed and receive treatment.
In recent years, a number of different anxiety disorders have been classified, but there are five (5) primary categories, including:
- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which affects about 10 million Americans, is characterized by at least six months of more-or-less constant state of tension or worry not related to any event. If you suffer from GAD, you may always expect a catastrophe to happen. Though you may know your feelings are unrealistic, you cannot control them. The worries are not those of other anxiety disorders, such as fear of panic attacks or appearing in public, nor are they obsessive as in obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, more than half the people who suffer from GAD also have another anxiety disorder or depression.
While GAD is long lasting and low grade, panic attacks develop abruptly and reach a peak within 10 minutes. They develop without warning and are not necessarily related to any specific event. The word anxiety is derived from the Latin, angere, which means to choke or strangle, and many women who suffer from panic attacks report the physical sensation of their throat tightening, cutting off their breath. This physical sensation can lead to additional anxious feelings.
- Panic disorder affects about 1.7 percent of the U.S. adult population ages 18 to 54, or 2.4 million people, in a given year. It typically strikes in young adulthood — before age 24 in 50 percent of cases. Women are twice as likely as men to develop panic disorder. People with panic disorder may also suffer from depression; in addition, 30 percent of those with panic disorder abuse alcohol and 17 percent abuse drugs such as cocaine and marijuana. About one-third of people with panic disorder develop agoraphobia, an illness in which they become afraid of being in any place or situation where escape might be difficult or help unavailable in the event of a panic attack.
- Phobias are irrational, involuntary, and overwhelming fears that lead a person to avoid common objects, events or situations. While they vary in severity, and in most cases people can avoid or at least endure phobic situations, in some cases the anxiety associated with the feared object or situation can be incapacitating. There are three types of phobias: specific, social and agoraphobia.
Specific phobias include fear of animals, heights (acrophobia), air travel (pterygophobia), water, confined spaces (claustrophobia), bridges, or other things.
Most phobic individuals are aware of the irrationality of their fear, and many endure intense anxiety rather than disclose their disorder. Simple phobias are among the most common medical disorders; in many mild cases, however, they are not significant enough to require treatment. Two examples are:
- Social phobias, caused by a fear of being embarrassed in a social situation, or publicly scrutinized and humiliated. Social phobia is often accompanied by depression and may lead to alcohol or other drug abuse. About 3.7 percent of American adults ages 18 to 54, or 5.3 million people, have social phobia in a given year. Social phobia is slightly more prevalent among women than men. The disorder typically begins in childhood or early adolescence and rarely develops after age 25.
- Agoraphobia, caused by a fear of having a panic attack in public, which may lead a person to avoid public spaces. About one-third of people with panic disorders develop agoraphobia, which has been somewhat misleadingly described as fear of open spaces — the term having been derived from the Greek word agora meaning marketplace.
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