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Jan 13 2021

What Causes Anxiety Disorders?

There isn’t one specific cause of anxiety disorders. They are not an illness like the flu which is caused by a virus, or a broken bone caused by an accident.  They are a caused by a complex set of individual circumstances that include genetic and environmental factors.  Each person that suffers with an anxiety disorder has a unique story of how that came to be a reality for them.  Each story is unique, but when looked at as a large group, patterns and similarities emerge.

Research indicates that there is a strong genetic component that may contribute to anxiety disorders. Scientists have not isolated a specific gene that makes a person predisposed to an anxiety disorder.  If you have a family member with an anxiety disorder, you are more like to also be at risk of developing one at some point in your life.  Your family history is no guarantee one way or the other, but it can put you more or less at risk.  Life experiences can trigger a genetic tendency towards anxiety.  If you don’t experience these triggering events, you may avoid this challenge in your life.

Our environment and the experience we grow up with shape our mental processes and in some cases, set us up for developing an anxiety disorder.  Children who grow up in an abusive or neglectful home can be at risk for an anxiety disorder.  Their life experience has taught them to always be on guard, and that it is not safe to trust.  Individuals who experience homelessness, are refugees, live through war, or are victims of violence are also at risk.  Individuals who do not have a strong support system are more at risk than those that do.

While having a difficult childhood, or experiencing severe trauma may place a person at risk for developing one or more anxiety disorders, it does not guarantee that they will.  Some individuals are able to process these negative events and maintain good mental health and a positive outlook on life.  Receiving appropriate counseling after these negative experiences can help prevent a severe disorder from developing.

In many cases it is a combination of a genetic predisposition towards mental health issues and negative life experiences that lead a person to develop an anxiety disorder.  It is usually not one thing, but a list of several contributing factors, that finally tip the scale and send the individual into an anxiety disorder.  The good news is that with professional help recovery and happiness is possible.  There are many effective treatment options and many caring mental health professionals available.

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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.

Written by Etherapy-Blogs · Categorized: Uncategorized · Tagged: anxiety disorder test, Anxiety Disorders, different anxiety disorders, different types of anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, types of anxiety disorders, what causes anxiety in the brain

Jan 11 2021

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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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.

Written by Etherapy-Blogs · Categorized: Uncategorized · Tagged: anxiety disorder treatment, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, generalized anxiety disorder causes, generalized anxiety disorder cure, generalized anxiety disorder help, Social Anxiety Disorder, types of anxiety disorders, What Is Generalized Anxiety, What Is Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Sep 17 2018

Panic Disorder – How to Tell, What to Do!

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder where the person suffers from frequent, sudden, panic attacks. These may last for several minutes, some may be longer, and can happen anywhere. While the feelings they bring on can be extreme, they are not medically harmful in and of themselves. The key is understanding that it is a panic attack and what to do when one is happening.

First, panic attacks and panic disorder itself are sudden, and severe anxiety attacks. Panic attack symptoms include:

  • Intense fear or worry
  • Impending sense of death or doom
  • Feeling overwhelmed
  • Feeling out of control
  • Shortness of breath/difficulty breathing
  • Chest pain
  • Sweating/having the chills
  • Dizziness
  • Numbness or tingling in extremities
  • Rapid, pounding heartbeat
  • Feeling lightheaded or fainting
  • Nausea

To meet the criteria for a diagnosis of panic disorder, the individual must experience repeated panic attacks over a short period of time. It is possible to have a single panic attack, and then never have another one, or to have them infrequently.

What causes panic attacks? Panic attacks occur when the level of stress or anxiety in an individual’s life becomes very intense and overwhelming.  The typical coping mechanisms for stress become overwhelming and stop functioning normally. Each person responds to high levels of stress and anxiety differently, and what one person is able to manage, may completely overwhelm another.  This is not a judgement of strength, or character, but simply a medical fact.

There is strong evidence for a genetic basis for a predisposition to anxiety disorders.  If you have close family members with anxiety, you may be more prone to develop an anxiety disorder.

Living with a high level of stress for an extended period of time may also lead to developing panic disorder.  If this is you, seek help now, learn ways to productively manage your stress before it becomes a debilitating panic disorder.  Talking to a mental health professional, and learning coping methods can turn your life around, and back towards happiness.

How can someone deal with anxiety and panic disorder? It is possible to learn how to cope with, and overcome, panic disorder. The first thing needed is education. People need to know this is a medical condition where their nervous system is misfiring, and they are not in any medical danger. Another way to manage this condition is with medication; anti-anxiety medication helps lessen anxiety symptoms and lowers chances for future attacks. Lastly, talk therapy can be used to help understand what is going on, what triggers there may be, and ways to calm once the panic attack is starting. Simple breathing exercises, mindfulness techniques, and reassuring self-talk is very helpful in overcoming panic attack, or anxiety attack, symptoms.

Panic disorder is treatable with a high success rate.  There are a variety of methods and approaches available.  The important thing is to act sooner, rather than later. If you, or a loved one, are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, or panic disorder, reach out to a mental health professional.

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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.

Written by Wendy Minks · Categorized: Uncategorized · Tagged: anxiety and panic attacks, anxiety disorder treatment, anxiety panic attack symptoms, anxiety panic attacks, causes of anxiety disorder, dealing with panic attacks, different types of panic attacks, generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, generalized anxiety disorder with panic attacks, managing panic attacks, overcoming panic attacks, panic, panic attack, panic attack and anxiety attack, panic attack disorder, panic attack symptoms, panic disorder, severe anxiety attacks, severe panic attack, severe panic attack symptoms, stress and panic attacks, symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks, therapy for panic attacks, types of anxiety disorders, types of panic attacks

Apr 09 2018

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.

Written by OldeTherapyPro · Categorized: Uncategorized · Tagged: all anxiety disorders, anxiety disorder treatment, Anxiety Disorders, anxiety disorders and phobias, causes of anxiety disorder, cognitive therapy of anxiety disorders, different anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety disorder causes, generalized anxiety disorder treatment, How Common are Anxiety Disorders?, other anxiety disorders, stress and anxiety disorders, types of anxiety disorders

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