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Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is a mental illness that adults can experience in several forms. It can feel like persistent fear or worry or in a physical form like muscle tension or a racing heart. For some people, anxiety interferes with their concentration or sleep.  


What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a normal reaction to life stresses. It alerts us to situations where we need to be aware and ready to take action, such as walking in a dark alley with a stranger walking behind us. An anxiety disorder is different from experiencing normal anxiety or fear. When someone is living with an anxiety disorder, their feelings become sensitized to the point where they interfere with everyday life.

Difference Between Fear and Anxiety

Fear is the mind and body’s response to an immediate threat. It is associated with the primitive “fight or flight” response, in which a person either stays to respond to the threat or leaves the situation to escape. 

Anxiety is the anticipation of something in the future. It is associated with avoidance behaviors and muscle tension. Anxiety causes people to take action to avoid people or situations that worsen their symptoms. It tends to exacerbate a person’s performance in school or at work. Relationships with family and friends may suffer as a result.  

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is not the fear of going out in public. Instead, it is the fear of being in a situation where leaving may be difficult or embarrassing. Someone with agoraphobia is afraid they may have a panic attack and be unable to find help. Their fear is disproportionate to the actual situation and lasts six months or longer. It leads to problems in functioning.  Someone living with agoraphobia experiences intense feelings of fear in two or more of these situations

  • Being in a crowd 
  • Being in enclosed spaces 
  • Being in open spaces
  • Being outside the home by themselves 
  • Standing in line 
  • Using public transportation 

The person living with agoraphobia starts to actively avoid situations that make them feel anxious or need someone to accompany them when going out. Some people with agoraphobia “grin and bear it” for as long as they can. They may become unable to leave their home. Someone can only meet the diagnostic criteria for agoraphobia if the fear of going out is “intensely upsetting or if it intensely interferes with normal daily activities.” 

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder occurs when someone has “persistent and excessive worry that interferes with daily activities.” The worries often focus on everyday concerns such as job responsibilities, family health, or minor items like appointments, car repairs, or household chores. Their ongoing worries and physical tension may include some (or all) of the following physical symptoms: 

  • Difficulty sleeping
  • Lack of concentration 
  • Fatigue 
  • Feeling “on edge” 
  • Muscle concentration 
  • Restlessness 
Panic Disorder

Panic Disorder’s primary symptom is repeated panic attacks. During a panic attack, a person experiences several symptoms simultaneously. These symptoms may be so intense the person may feel as though they are having a heart attack.  

  • Chest pains 
  • Chills or hot flashes 
  • Fear of dying 
  • Fear of losing control 
  • Feeling of choking 
  • Feeling detached 
  • Feeling dizzy, light-headed, or faint 
  • Heart palpitations (rapid heart rate or pounding heart) 
  • Nausea or abdominal pains 
  • Numbness or tingling 
  • Shortness of breath or smothering sensations 
  • Sweating 
  • Trembling or shaking  

Since some of these symptoms can be severe, the affected person often visits a hospital Emergency Department. A particular object or place may trigger panic attacks. They may also happen unexpectedly. A person living with depression or PTSD may experience panic attacks.  

Phobias

Phobias are specific, persistent fears of objects, situations, or activities that are usually not harmful. A person knows their fear is not logical but can’t prevail over it. The fear causes so much distress that a person goes to extremes to avoid the thing or situation they fear. Some common phobias are fear of social interactions (social phobia), intense fear of failure (atychiphobia), fear of developing a disease (nosophobia), and fear of spiders (arachnophobia).  

Separation Anxiety Disorder

Separation Anxiety Disorder causes someone to become excessively anxious about being separated from those with whom they are attached. The feeling is beyond appropriate for the person’s age, lasts for at least six months, and interferes with their functioning.  

Someone with a separation anxiety disorder may constantly worry about losing the person they are closest to, refuse to sleep away from home or without their “important person,” or experience nightmares about them. The physical symptoms of separation anxiety disorder often begin in childhood and then continue into adulthood.  

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social Anxiety Disorder causes significant discomfort and anxiety about being embarrassed and looked down on in social situations. People living with social anxiety disorder either try to avoid the problem or experience considerable anxiety when faced with it. Typical examples are an extreme level of anxiety about eating or drinking in public, meeting new people, or public speaking. The anxiety causes problems with the person’s daily functioning and lasts a minimum of six months. 

Causes of Anxiety 

Researchers have not been able to discover the exact causes of anxiety disorders. Several factors likely contribute to a person developing this common type of mental illness that affects close to 30 percent of the population at some point. Women are more likely than men to develop an anxiety disorder than men.  

How Anxiety is Treated

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT, is an evidence-based treatment that is effective for treating anxiety. It focuses on the problems a client is experiencing in the present, as opposed to why they are having problems.  

CBT also includes having the client do homework regularly. The therapist expects their clients to practice the new skills they are learning between treatment sessions. Over 8-20 sessions, the clients learn to replace negative thoughts with more positive, productive ones.  

How Anxiety Overlaps with Other Mental Illnesses 

Anxiety disorder symptoms can often overlap with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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