Anxiety Disorders: Regular Stress Reaction or Something More Severe?
Anxiety is a normal reaction where our brain reacts to stress and alerts us of potential danger ahead. It is a common reaction that people usually feel when they face problems at work or school, before taking a test, or before making an important decision. Occasional anxiety is a normal phenomenon, but anxiety disorders are a group of mental illnesses that create constant and overwhelming anxiety and fear. Excessive anxiety can force an individual to drop school, work, family functions, and other social situations that may trigger or worsen the symptoms of your pre-existing condition.
Kind of Anxiety Disorders and How They Affect?
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: In this condition, you feel excessive, unrealistic tension with little or no reason. We will discuss this anxiety disorder in detail.
Panic Disorder:
You feel sudden, extreme fear that results in a panic attack. During a panic attack, you may have chest pain, break out in a sweat, and have a pounding heart with palpitations. At times, you might feel like you have a heart attack or you are choking.
Social Anxiety Disorder:
Also known as social phobia, this disorder makes you feel overwhelmingly worried and self-conscious regarding every social situation. You obsessively worry about what others think about you and feel like everyone is judging you, making you feel embarrassed or ridiculed.
Specific Phobias:
Phobias make you feel intense fear of a particular object or situation, such as water, height, or flying. The fear goes beyond what is appropriate and may force you to avoid everyday problems. Agoraphobia is an intense fear of being at a place that makes you feel trapped, and it seems complicated to escape or take help in an emergency. In this condition, you may feel panic or anxious when you are on an airplane, on public transportation (bus), or standing in line with a crowd.
Separation Anxiety:
This anxiety is more common in children when someone leaves them or separates them. But little kids are not the only ones who feel anxious or scared when a loved one goes; anyone can feel separation anxiety. You will feel very nervous or scared when a person you love leaves your sight in this condition. You consistently worry that something terrible may happen to your loved ones.
Selective Mutism:
This is quite a different type of anxiety in young kids. Here, children who usually talk with their families do not feel like speaking in public or get anxious in school.
Medication-induced anxiety disorder: Use of specific medications or illegal drugs, or withdrawal from particular medicines, may trigger some anxiety disorder symptoms.
Anxiety Disorder Symptoms?
The primary symptom is excessive fear or worry, but that is not enough. Anxiety disorders can make it hard for you to sleep, breathe, concentrate, or even stay still. The symptoms depend upon the type of anxiety disorder you have, but common symptoms include:
- fear and uneasiness; the feeling of panic, danger, or doom; inability to stay calm and still;
- sleep problems; heart palpitations; shortness of breath; inability to concentrate;
- hyperventilation, where you breath faster or more rapidly than average; nausea, dry mouth, dizziness;
- cold, numb, sweaty, or tingling hands or feet; tense muscles;
- thinking about the same problem again and again and unable to stop brooding over it (rumination); obsessively or intensely avoiding the places or objects you fear
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Basic Overview
Generalized anxiety disorder is not any normal feeling of anxiousness. In this condition, an individual consistently and irrelevantly worries about everyday situations. Sometimes, it is called chronic anxiety neurosis. Patients suffering from GAD keep worrying even if they do not have anything to worry about. Usually, they report feelings or emotions that something terrible may happen or fail to calm themselves.
Physical and mental symptoms of GAD include:
- difficulty in letting go of worries, concentrating, sleeping
- perceiving situations as more threatening than they are
- difficulty with uncertain conditions, nervousness, irritability, overthinking, and feeling restless
- muscle tension, fatigue, exhaustion, dry mouth
- sweaty palms, rapid heartbeat, touching shaky or weak, being easily startled
- repeated diarrhea, stomach aches, or other gastrointestinal issues
- neurological symptoms, including tingliness or numbness in different body parts
Childhood and teenage anxiety may occur in about one out of four children at some point during their teen years in school or at home.
What are the possible causes of anxiety in humans?
Some prominent causes of anxiety in humans:
Genetics:
A family past of anxiety disorders can be a reason behind your anxiety, especially if you have a generalized anxiety disorder.
Brain chemistry:
Some research suggests anxiety disorders may be linked to faulty brain circuits that control fear and emotions.
Environmental stress:
It refers to stressful events you have witnessed or lived through. Life events often linked to anxiety disorders include childhood neglect and abuse, the death of a loved one, or seeing violence or being attacked.
Drug misuse or withdrawal:
The use of specific medications can hide or decrease anxiety symptoms. Anxiety disorder can occur together with alcohol and substance use.
Medical conditions:
Some lung, heart, and thyroid conditions can cause similar symptoms to an anxiety disorder or worsen pre-existing symptoms. It is crucial to get a complete body check-up before ruling out medical conditions while talking about anxiety to a medical healthcare provider.
Is it possible to treat Anxiety Disorders with Medications?
There are various treatments available to reduce and manage anxiety disorders after clinical diagnosis. Usually, people prefer taking medicines and going for counseling. Other treatments for anxiety disorders several drugs help treat anxiety disorders, and people buy Lexapro online as it is one of the best medications. Your medical healthcare provider may assign a suitable drug to you as per your condition and medicinal needs.
Antidepressants:
Both SSRIs and SNRIs are modern antidepressants that a doctor usually prescribes. Examples of SSRIs are fluoxetine (Prozac) and escitalopram (Lexapro). Examples of SNRIs are venlafaxine (Effexor) and duloxetine (Cymbalta).
Bupropion:
This category of antidepressants helps treat chronic anxiety. It works differently from SNRIs and SSRIs.
Other antidepressants:
Includes monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI) and tricycles. Doctors are less likely to prescribe these drugs due to the side effects, such as dry mouth, drops in blood pressure, urinary retention, and blurry vision can be unsafe or unpleasant for some people.
Benzodiazepines:
This category of medications helps lower anxiety. Examples are clonazepam (Klonopin) and alprazolam (Xanax). They work rapidly, but you can become dependent on them. Usually, they have prescribed add-on drugs for anxiety disorder treatment, and you should not take them for longer than prescribed.
Beta-blocker:
It is a high blood pressure drug that can help you make better if you are physical anxiety symptoms, such as trembling, racing heart, or shaking. A beta-blocker may help in relaxing acute anxiety attacks.
Anticonvulsants:
It helps prevent seizures in people with epilepsy and helps relieve specific anxiety disorder symptoms.
Antipsychotics:
Low doses of these medications can help make other treatments work better.
Buspirone (BuSpar):
This anti-anxiety medication sometimes helps treat chronic anxiety. It would help if you took it for a few weeks until total symptom relief
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