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Environmental Causes of Anxiety

Environmental Causes of Anxiety

Environmental Causes of Anxiety: Your environment is everything around you, with which you may, or may not interact. That’s a very broad definition, because the environment is basically everything outside of you. It includes not just nature, and the biological, but the social as well. And all of it can cause stress and contribute to anxiety.

Anxiety and anxiety-based disorders are very similar in symptomology and in their function; they exist to help keep a person safe from harm and to manage the fight/flight/or freeze stress reaction. Anxiety disorders exist when the feeling and physical reaction are so severe or chronic that they interfere with day to day living.

Common Environmental Causes of Anxiety

The causes of anxiety and anxiety disorders can vary but will fall into either the genetic or environmental categories. Looking at the environmental causes, the biological are some of the most controllable. Psychotropic substances, or substances which affect an individual’s thought and emotional states, are some of the more common causes of anxiety. Of these substances, caffeine would be the most common.

Caffeine is a stimulant that speeds up the nervous system, and can cause racing thoughts, difficulty concentrating, rapid heartbeat and shallow breathing among other things. It is highly correlated with anxiety and can either cause anxious or nervous feelings and behaviors or exacerbate already existing anxiety problems. Other drugs can cause similar symptoms, with methamphetamines as one example.

Probably the most common environmental source of anxiety are events that happen in everyone’s life. Situations that involve loss, or sudden and unexpected change often bring about anxiety. For example, finding out your parents are getting a divorce can be shocking and a sudden change, that can elicit tremendous anxiety in children. Getting fired from work, as another example, will bring out vast amounts of stress and uncertainty about the future. The key here is that suddenly the future is uncertain, and what was thought was normal and planned out, is now a big unknown.

Traumas also cause a lot of damage, chief among this is anxiety. Trauma is known to create many different symptoms, mainly those that are anxiety-based. Post-traumatic stress disorder highlights this, with hyper-vigilance, intrusive thoughts, and general anxiety. It is like a wound in the mind, and it forces the person to keep going, acting like the attack or damage is going to come again and again. It is draining to keep going at that rate to say the least.

Anxiety comes from many different sources, but it looks very similar from each source. The key is that anxiety is treatable, no matter what causes it. A combination of medication, education, and talk therapy can be helpful in lessening the severity of it or eliminating it altogether. Help is out there from a variety of mental health professionals.  Many individuals have found success with a counselor from an online therapy service. These services are much more convenient than face to face appointments, and can be much less expensive.

 

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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post and any associated articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect opinions or policies of eTherapyPro. These posts and articles are shared for your enjoyment and consideration. Read them or not at your sole discretion and liability. They are not intended to replace counseling services rendered by licensed professionals. Consult with your counselor before implementing any content from these articles into your life.

Coping Strategies for Living with an Anxiety Disorder

Living with an Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety can be a nightmare for some to deal with, especially people who have to deal with it every day of their lives. Chronic anxiety, living with it every day, can be torturous, but it is treatable. Reaching out for help would be the first step to getting this under control. While you are going through the process of therapy to treat your specific anxiety disorder, here are some ways to try to manage the day-to-day, when the anxiety disorder seems out of control.

Break things down into what you can do for your body, what you can do for your mind, and what actions you can take to help yourself out that day. Looking at what you can do for your body, adopting some healthy lifestyle traits will go a long way towards alleviating anxiety and improving your mood as well.

Tips to help your body (to get rid of anxiety disorder) include:

  • Limit or cut out alcohol and caffeine from your diet
  • Try to get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night
  • Eat regularly, and eat well-balanced meals
  • Set up regular exercise, for at least thirty minutes a day
  • Take frequent breaks from what you are doing

These may not seem like much, but anxiety can be intensified when you are, tired, stressed, or intoxicated. By doing this you will take care of your health and lower your anxiety disorder.

Caring for your mind to lower anxiety is a little more complicated. A lot of work can and should be done in talk therapy to help manage these conditions, but here are some tips to help alleviate some anxiety when it happens:

  • Ask yourself if this is something worth getting upset over
  • Ask yourself if this is something that will matter a year from now
  • Learn to accept what you cannot control instead of letting it consume you
  • Learn what you can and cannot control
  • Develop a strong sense of humor
  • Meditation and keeping yourself focused on the present

These are simple steps that may take a lot of practice but will go a very long way in the quest to rid yourself of anxiety.

Now, taking action is another thing that will help, especially when it is action aimed at fighting anxiety disorder, both being proactive and reactive. These can include:

  • Slow, deep breathing or some thoughtful breathing technique
  • Learning distraction techniques, like listening to music, reading, or talking to friends when you are upset
  • Set goals for yourself every day, attainable ones
  • Learn what triggers your anxiety and avoid it until you are strong enough to manage it

Coping skills to combat daily anxiety disorder are a necessary tool in living with it. There are things to do that will overall help lower anxiety, as well as things to do in the moment when the anxiety is getting bad. These will help in conjunction with any medication and talk therapy you are doing to eliminate chronic anxiety from your life.

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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post and any associated articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of eTherapyPro. These posts and articles are shared for your enjoyment and consideration. Read them or not at your sole discretion and liability. They are not intended to replace counseling services rendered by licensed professionals. Consult with your counselor before implementing any content from these articles into your life.

Learning About Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder reference image

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder):

OCD:
You have to wash your hands again. You have no choice. If you don’t, something awful will happen. Terrifying. Just wash them one more time then you are safe. Just one more time. Again. And another time. Again.

This may sound like fiction, but it is the truth for the many people living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD is an anxiety-based disorder where there are intrusive thoughts in the person’s mind that cause tremendous worry and anxiety. Those thoughts somehow become calmed or at least minimized when the person performs some specific action, like hand washing, checking the stove, walking around the house checking doors and windows. And this action will have to be repeated many times, dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times. A person with a hand-washing compulsion may wash their hands so many times they become raw and start to bleed.

OCD & Anxiety Disorder

It’s hard to say what the origin of OCD is, but likely the person has an anxiety disorder to begin with, and somehow the anxiety at one point became lessened after the person did a certain action. They learned then that after they do a certain thing, it gets better. The anxiety gets worse, so they keep doing the behavior more and more, and in some ways, it becomes like an addiction, where they need to do this repetition just to get the same results.

Obsessions are repeated thoughts, urges, or mental images that cause anxiety. Common symptoms include:

  • Fear of germs or contamination
  • Unwanted forbidden thoughts involving sex, religion, and harm
  • Aggressive thoughts toward others or self
  • Having things symmetrical or in a perfect order

Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that a person with OCD feels the urge to do in response to an obsessive thought. Common compulsions include:

  • Excessive cleaning and/or hand-washing
  • Ordering and arranging things in a particular, precise way
  • Repeatedly checking on things, such as repeatedly checking to see if the door is locked or that the oven is off
  • Compulsive counting

Not all rituals or habits are compulsions. Everyone double-checks things sometimes. But a person with OCD generally:

  • Can’t control his or her thoughts or behaviors, even when those thoughts or behaviors are recognized as excessive
  • Spends at least 1 hour a day on these thoughts or behaviors
  • Doesn’t get pleasure when performing the behaviors or rituals, but may feel brief relief from the anxiety the thoughts cause
  • Experiences significant problems in their daily life due to these thoughts or behaviors

OCD like the rest of the anxiety disorders can be managed and eventually overcome with help. Also like other anxiety disorders, this is best treated sooner rather than later, as it gives a much better prognosis, and in the end, less time spent suffering with this illness.

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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post and any associated articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of eTherapyPro. These posts and articles are shared for your enjoyment and consideration. Read them or not at your sole discretion and liability. They are not intended to replace counseling services rendered by licensed professionals. Consult with your counselor before implementing any content from these articles into your life.

Genetic Causes of Anxiety

Anxiety and anxiety disorders cause a lot of suffering, and often for no clear reason. Anxiety comes from worry and stress over things the brain has identified as a potential threat, even if they are completely illogical. Take for example, triskaidekaphobia, or fear of Friday the 13th. It’s not reasonable to be afraid of a date, but people still suffer from this disorder and a couple times a year will be in a panic over a date.

What we have learned is that anxiety comes from both environmental and genetic factors. The environment is everything outside of the self, both things found in nature, and normal human events, like divorce or job loss. The genetic factors, however, are encoded in our DNA, and increase the likelihood of any one of us suffering from a crippling anxiety disorder.

Genetics will increase the likelihood of certain outcomes.  For example a person’s genes will have a lot of influence over their height. This does not mean, however, that their genes will solely determine how tall a person will be; their environment impacts how their traits will develop from their genes. Staying with the example of a person’s height, if a person grows up very poor and does not get enough of the right nutrients, or barely gets food at all, this severely impacts the body’s growth potential, making that person shorter than someone who gets proper nutrition, even though both their genes may be coded to be tall.

The same is true for anxiety. Looking at specific anxiety disorders, like Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), or panic disorder, evidence strongly suggests that there is a genetic link to them. What has been shown is that anxiety disorders have a strong correlation to run in families, giving evidence to it being genetic. Looking at twins that have been raised apart, the twins are equally likely to suffer from an anxiety-based condition, making it less likely that it is a learned or environmental factor, if they grew up in different environments. Although the genetic markers are not clear yet, researchers are working to find them in order to help understand anxiety and its origins better.

Whether it is environmental or genetic, what is true about anxiety is that it can be managed and eliminated with the right form of treatment. If you or someone you care about are struggling with anxiety, and it is beginning to impact your life, please reach out for help. The sooner you seek help, the sooner relief will come, and the easier it will be to treat the anxiety.

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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post and any associated articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect opinions or policies of eTherapyPro. These posts and articles are shared for your enjoyment and consideration. Read them or not at your sole discretion and liability. They are not intended to replace counseling services rendered by licensed professionals. Consult with your counselor before implementing any content from these articles into your life.

Breathing Techniques for Managing Anxiety

Breathing techniques

What is the best way to deal with anxiety?  The most common ways to treat anxiety are the use of medication, education, and talk therapy. Part of learning how to overcome anxiety is learning specific coping skills when the anxiety is troublesome. One specific and very helpful method is a whole category of them: breathing techniques. While this can be simply summed up as controlled breathing, there is much more to it than that.

First, let’s look at what is the most helpful breathing techniques. While most people think of it as deep breathing, that is not really the case. The most important part of a breathing technique to cope with anxiety is that it is slow breathing. Deep breathing can be a part of it, but it must be done so as slowly as your body will allow to make it the most effective. Also, these techniques will be most helpful if done when the anxiety is building; when the anxiety is already at the highest level, breathing techniques lose some effectiveness.

Breathing techniques work to relieve anxiety by first distracting the mind. Controlling your breathing becomes a very complicated and strict task to focus on, and the brain can essentially lose track of the anxiety. Distraction techniques are often very useful in managing anxiety and stress. They also work by taking conscious control of breathing, which is mostly an automatic function, slows down the automatic response to anxiety that the body has, which is increased heart rate and respiration. Consciously controlling this interrupts the anxiety process, and helps calm the mind.

Many different breathing techniques help control anxiety, and the important thing is to find one that fits you and your anxiety. Keep the breathing slow and measured, and they should work well.

One common technique is called 4-7-8 breathing. It starts with inhaling, while silently counting to 4, then holding it for the count of 7, and finally exhaling for the count of 8. Keep repeating this process for a few minutes and you should notice a difference in your level of anxiety. Another technique is 4×4 breathing. This starts with inhaling to the count of 4, holding it to the count of 4, exhaling to the count of 4, and then holding it to the count of 4 before you start over again. Keep using this for a few minutes, and you should feel some relief.

Breathing techniques are very common because they are effective at managing anxiety at the moment. It may seem like it’s silly, but they do work. Try to find a breathing technique that helps manage your anxiety, as there are many out there, and you should find that your anxiety will be taken down several levels as a result.

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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this post and any associated articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect opinions or policies of eTherapyPro. These posts and articles are shared for your enjoyment and consideration. Read them or not at your sole discretion and liability. They are not intended to replace counseling services rendered by licensed professionals. Consult with your counselor before implementing any content from these articles into your life.