Anxiety

GAD is characterized by excessive worrying about one or more circumstances which may be imaginary and negative. Normally, all the human beings have negative thoughts, fears, but the person with GAD will be preoccupied by those negative thoughts and fear of misfortune all the time. GAD has been termed as "free-floating" as it has no fixed timing or any particular reason.

Apparent symptoms of GAD are, the person will always be worried and tensed by something, he will speak too much or too less, he will not be able to sit still and relax. Other symptoms are, lump in the throat, disturbed sleep, dry throat and difficulty in concentrating.

It is seen that people with present GAD symptoms, have experienced panic attacks in the past and because of their prior experience, they become agoraphobic and exhibit the symptoms of typical GAD. Treatment is very much necessary for them or else they will continue to live a depressed, restricted life with fear and continual panic and anxiety attacks.

The constant fear of being criticized or evaluated by the other people in the society and surroundings is called Social Anxiety. People with social anxiety are afraid of their own social appearances and very much anxious, nervous while attending a social gathering. It may be a simple business meeting or a company party, which can wreck his nerves and terrorize his whole being. They try their best to perform well but anxiety turns their efforts down. They feel nervous particularly in front of public figures and important personalities in the society. The fear of being observed by the people, for his nervous actions, makes them more conscious of their anxiety and they are helplessly caught in the vicious circle. The person with social anxiety, most of the time, was seen as being shy during his childhood, as social anxiety develops early and if go unseen and untreated, it becomes chronic and torturous and that ruins the possibility of healthy social and psychological growth of that person.

Panic disorder is characterized by the sudden attack of tremendous and uncontrollable panic and fear of having additional attacks. Most of the times the person, who is having an attack, does not know the exact reason or the cause behind his fear. The symptoms of a panic attack are shortness of breath, dizziness or fainting, increased pulse rate, tremor, hot and cold flashes and detachment. These symptoms accompany bewilderedness by the fear of dying and losing control.

When a person has the fear of being wounded by panic attacks in public places and avoids those places, as he has prior experiences of panic attacks in those places, is called Agoraphobia. The person does not know when he is going to suffer the next panic attack and this causes anxiety in him. Due to this anxiety he stops going anywhere outside from his own security zone. This is a common symptom of panic disorder patient with Agoraphobia.

When someone has a history of a traumatic life, such as, war time experience, rape, sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse, terror of death etc, he may suffer from anxiety, stress and depression and also there are chances of getting haunted by flash backs of the glimpses of those incidents that may induce panic attacks.

When a person with very compulsive behaviour, is not able to control repeated unwanted thoughts and actions, he is a patient of obsessive-compulsive behaviour.

Anxiety disorder is often accompanied by depression, eating and sleeping disorder, substance abuse etc. Again there are possibilities of co-existence of anxiety disorder with major diseases like cancer, heart disease to worsen the condition of the patient. While treating these patients, a thorough medical check up is required to find out the other possible symptoms of anxiety.

Panic and anxiety disorders are chronic mental diseases and are treatable indeed. in most cases these types of disorders demand a considerable period of time. The treatment of panic and anxiety combines medications and psychotherapies, the medication targets the imbalance of brain chemicals and psychotherapy soothes the emotional hazards causing pain.

There are a number of medications available for treating depression which is equally efficient in helping a person in panic and anxiety, the special class of drug is called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Other group of drugs, used especially for the treatment of anxiety is called benzodiazepines and beta-blockers and Xanax is into that category. These types of medications work by slowing down the actions of central nervous system in the brain. The clinically proven therapies for anxiety disorder are behavioral therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. The behavioral therapy focuses on correcting the behavior of the patients to stop unwanted behavior, while cognitive behavioral therapy puts emphasis on changing thinking patterns which is the root cause of his mental sufferings.