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Different Types of Anxiety Disorders

Common Types of Anxiety Disorder:
There are still some different categories for anxiety disorders, even though they change depending on individual differences in the profiles of biological and experience kinds. Common types include phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social phobia, more than shyness, is an intense fear of being watched and judged. This is uncomfortable in social settings. The fear causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning, including work, school, and relationships. A support group is crucial when working through anxiety disorders.

Types of Anxiety Disorder: PTSD

PTSD is often referred to as a condition that afflicts veterans. However, this condition affects anyone who has experienced traumatic events. Such events may include violent crimes, accidents, or witnessing any of the above actions. The fight, flight, or freeze response by the brain is very effective in the moment but sometimes hangs on, causing the person to re-experience the moment of trauma. This may cause an individual to live in fear and overwhelming responses by the body and mind to memories of the traumatic event.

Types of Anxiety Disorder: Panic Disorder

People suffering from panic disorder are usually induced by various stimuli to experience panic attacks. The stimuli that people fear because they might cause harm include heights, crowds, and public speaking. Panic attacks involve major physical feelings such as rapid heart, perspiration, and shortness of breath. Such sensations are momentary, but the anxiety of subsequent attacks compels one to avoid triggering situations.

Types of Anxiety Disorder: Phobias

A phobia is an irrational fear not in proportion to the threat. They can vary from mild aversions to debilitating fears. Some types of anxiety disorders include phobias, and they can be treated with exposure therapy, CBT, and counseling.

Hoarding Disorder

This type of disorder is more than the inability to get rid of objects- it is a mental illness that makes individuals unable to let go of possessions, even if they are hazardous. Hoarding is typically associated with a severe fear of giving up possessions and may be coupled with social withdrawal. Professional help with healthier management skills and emotional needs must be included in any treatment attempt related to hoarding rather than merely cleaning up the environment.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

There are other situations wherein GAD is diagnosed once the symptoms are seen as not applying to any other categories. One may experience panic attacks, social problems, problems of physical manifestation, or extreme emotional reactions in people with GAD. This helps manage GAD by understanding and correcting negative thought patterns and behaviors.

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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.

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.

How Common are Anxiety Disorders?

Anxiety disorders are a diverse group of  similar psychological disorders. Anxiety disorders have the common elements of unusually high levels of fear accompanied by anxiety and behavioral abnormalities. The Diagnostic and Statistical manual of Mental Disorders in its fifth edition (denoted as DSM-5) is the most recent publication which provides the definition and statistics regarding psychological disorders. The DSM-5 considers generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD), social anxiety disorder, phobias and substance-induced anxiety to belong to the spectrum of anxiety disorders (Emedicine.medscape.com, 2018).

Anxiety disorders have high prevalence among all the psychiatric and mental health disorders. Anxiety disorders often occur in conjunction with another major psychiatric ailment, depression. Worldwide, the prevalence of depression was expected to be three hundred million as of year 2015. Anxiety and depression often co-exist so there is an overlapping prevalence of both the disorders. Similar prevalence of various anxiety disorders also exists.  Anxiety disorders pose a huge burden of disease with respect to disability. Anxiety disorders are ranked as the sixth largest contributor to worldwide disability standing at 3.4 percent contribution to global disability. Anxiety disorders resulted in a sum of 24.6 million years lost to disability in 2015 alone (Apps.who.int, 2018).

Do you know how common is anxiety? As per 2015 estimates, 3.6 percent of the people of the world suffer from one or the other form of an anxiety disorder. There are a total of two hundred and sixty four million people living in the world who suffer from anxiety. Anxiety and depression both have higher prevalence in the female population compared to the male population with 4.6 percent of females suffering from these disorders compared to 3.6% of the males. Females have nearly double the prevalence than males. When age groups are compared for prevalence, no significant differences exist between the different age-groups except for the elderly, who show a relatively lower prevalence. (Apps.who.int, 2018) How common is anxiety? Now, this question does not carry any importance. How to find a solution, this is important.

Although yearly data and statistical figures have their own importance, lifetime-prevalence is considered to be the most significant statistical figure in understanding the impact of the disease. The twelve months prevalence figures merely suggest the number of people having an anxiety disorder currently. The probability of people acquiring an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives is predicted on the basis of past life-time prevalence statistics.

The following expresses the probability of an individual acquiring an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives:

Any of the anxiety disorders 28.8%
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 5.7%
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) 1.6%
Panic disorder (PD) 4.7%
Social phobia 12.1%
Specific (other) phobia 12.5%

 

References

Apps.who.int. (2018). [Online] Available at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/254610/WHO-MSD-MER-2017.2-eng.pdf;jsessionid=73BCB4A79B8729A7D4218C2125BEFA2A?sequence=1 [Accessed 26 Mar. 2018].

Emedicine.medscape.com. (2018). Anxiety Disorders: Background, Anatomy, Pathophysiology. [online] Available at: https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/286227-overview?pa=gF4MN9UD9tp%2Bo3F%2BizsZ9QwHkb2HRa%2FehEUmZABPnN%2BcxowQo3c%2B3CWCa%2F8KMQWh6p6oWviy8uflye2V0IfCGtRNZ1wOcAGVEOAmcrMialo%3D [Accessed 26 Mar. 2018].

 

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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.

What Is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?

generalized anxiety disorder

Everyone gets anxious from time to time. Anxiety is sometimes thought of as the energy of life, as it motivates us to do, or not do, certain things. But there is a point where it becomes painful, where it interferes with daily living, and that is where it becomes Generalized Anxiety Disorder. You must consult with experts about what causes gad to appear.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a diagnosable condition where the person suffers from persistent and unrelenting anxiety, with no real cause. If a person were living in a violent situation, like an abusive home, having chronic anxiety would be an appropriate response. For people with GAD, there is nothing in the environment to cause them extreme fear or stress, yet they feel it intensely. Only an expert can tell you what is gad because he or she can explain the fundamental concept. 

It is generally thought that GAD stems from a combination of a genetic component and the way the person is brought up. If a person is brought up to be more fearful and mistrustful of things, they may be more likely to develop an anxiety disorder, like GAD.

Feeling nervous occasionally is normal, but chronic and persistent anxiety, like with GAD, can inhibit how you live your life. A good rule to follow is if you notice that you are unable to stop worrying and it is interfering with any aspect of your life, such as your job, relationships, or spirituality, then it is time to seek help. It is also important to reach out for help if you find yourself using alcohol or other substances to help manage the symptoms, or if you experience thoughts of suicide. What is a gad is a complex question but experts can help you with this topic.

People with GAD will likely experience many of the same types of symptoms, but it may not be each symptom, every day. It is important to note that this is a chronic condition, and feeling anxious over a test coming next week, is not GAD; the test anxiety goes away after the event is over, and GAD does not go away.

Some other symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder include:

  • Persistent worrying or anxiety about several areas that are out of proportion to the impact of the events
  • Overthinking plans and solutions to all possible worst-case outcomes
  • Perceiving situations and events as threatening, even when they aren’t
  • Difficulty handling uncertainty
  • Indecisiveness and fear of making the wrong decision
  • Inability to set aside or let go of a worry
  • Inability to relax, feeling restless, and feeling keyed up or on edge
  • Difficulty concentrating, or the feeling that your mind “goes blank”
  • Fatigue
  • Trouble sleeping
  • Muscle tension or muscle aches
  • Trembling, feeling twitchy
  • Nervousness or being easily startled
  • Sweating
  • Nausea, diarrhea, or irritable bowel syndrome
  • Irritability

 

While this sounds painful, it is important to know that GAD is treatable and can be overcome with the help of medication, education, and talk therapy. If this sounds like you or someone you know, reaching out for help is vital. The sooner you get help, the easier this illness is to overcome. What is GAD? How can it be controlled for all such questions, you must approach experts. 

 

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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.