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Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety disorder is a disorder in which fears or phobias are pushed past the normal level. Anxiety is something that every human experiences from time to time, on a small or large scale. As humans, part of our brain works on the basis of anxiety. If there were no anxiety, we would never recognize true danger. However, when anxiety gets to the point of inducing danger that doesn't exist, the disorder becomes apparent.

Types Of Anxiety

There are several different kinds of anxiety disorders, as that term generally describes many different diseases.

Phobias

This type of anxiety involves fear of particular objects and actions. For example, you might fear spiders (arachnophobia), dogs (cynophobia), waves (cymophobia), or public places (agoraphobia).

Panic Disorders

A panic attack is a sudden onset of intense panic, often lasting a couple hours. These attacks can often cause nausea, dizziness, breathing difficulty, and intense worrying. The cause is not always known.

General Anxiety Disorder

With this disorder, you are constantly fearing something. The cause is not known making it harder to treat.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

This is an intense stress that results after a traumatic incident has occurred, such as witnessing a terrible act (war, rape, etc.)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

With this disorder, you have persistent thoughts over a small, usually insignificant things. For example, obsessing over whether or not the car lights were left on.

Separation Anxiety

With this disorder, you have anxiety because you left a specific location or person. This happens with younger children who are separated from their parents. But that is normal.

Symptoms

Because it's sometimes hard to distinguish regular anxiety from an anxiety disorder, it's recommended you consult a doctor for a full diagnosis before taking treatments. However, the list below describes some common symptoms.

Excessive worrying
Uncontrollable worrying
Anxiety that affects your physical actions
Poor sleep
6 months of symptoms
Dizziness

It is thought that anxiety disorder is caused from an imbalance in the brain in the parabrachial nucleus. The actual cause of general anxiety disorders are not known, but here is a list of the possible contributing factors:

Outside Factors: Any stressful situation going on, such as a death, lost loved one, or life changes. Certain substances can also escalate anxiety, such as smoking, alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs.
Heredity: The ability to pass anxiety disorders through genetics is a possibility.
Brain Chemistry: The neurotransmitters in the brain are responsible for the communication between the brain and the nerves. Sometimes this communication becomes off-balance.

Diagnosing

If you do consult a doctor, they will usually begin the diagnosis by asking a series of questions pertaining to the particular anxieties you might be having. After the verbal questions, the doctor might do a physical exam to check for any symptoms that could be related to another kind of disease. Doctors will also check family history, as it is thought that anxiety disorders could be passed on from generation to generation.

Treatment

Psychotherapy is one form of treatment. Intense sessions with psychiatrists will attempt to restructure the way the brain is working, reducing the particular kind of anxiety the patient is suffering from.

Anxiety Medication

Anxiety drugs are used after the behavioral therapies have been tried. Sometimes, the two are intermixed. There is a bit of a disagreement in the public opinion about doing this. Some say that the medications get in the way of the psychotherapy. Others say that it enhances the therapy.

Many of the medications taken to treat anxiety disorders are anti-depressants.

Benzodiazepines are a popular type of anti anxiety medication. This category of medications is a form of tranquilizer, which leads to a relaxing feeling and often drowsiness. There are other types of anxiety medicine which do not cause drowsiness. These medications generally affect the serotonin levels and the way the neurotransmitters communicate with each other in the brain.

Prevention

There is no cure for anxiety disorders, but there are a few steps that be taken to reduce the risk of unnecessary anxiety:

Maintain a healthy lifestyle
Avoid high stress situations when possible
Reduce the use of caffeine from coffee, tea, and cola products
Be careful about which over-the-counter medications you used
Consult a doctor immediately after a traumatic situation

Anxiety disorders have been around for a long time. Projections say almost 20% of the US population has some type of anxiety disorder. With high stress work environments these days, it's easy to see why a disease like this could be so prevalent. Taking caring of yourself is more important in this day and age than ever before. To reduce the risk of your stress becoming a stress disorder, take all the steps possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle.