Understanding Anxiety & Stress Disorders

Understanding Anxiety & Stress Disorders

It’s ok and normal to feel tense or apprehensive when under pressure or facing stressful situation. Anxiety is the body’s natural answer to danger, an automatic alarm reaction we experince when we feel threatened.
Although it may be unpleasant, stress isn’t always a bad or wrong thing. In fact, anxiety can focus our attention, and help us stay  alert and focused in situations where this may be necessary ie; seeing a friend or child in a dangerous situation, thus spurring ourselves to action to alleviate the danger. It can also help to motivate ourselves to solve problems. But when stress is constant and overwhelming, when it interferes with your associations and activities—that’s when you’ve crossed the line from the usual anxiety into the field of medical anxiety disorders.

Do you have an Anxiety disorder?

If you identify with many of the signs and symptoms listed below, and they just won’t go away, you may be suffering from some form of anxiety disorder.
* Are you constantly tense, worried, or on edge?
* Does your stress interfere with your work, school, household or family responsibilities?
* Are you plagued by fears that you know are irrational, but can’t shake?
* Do you think that something bad may happen if some things aren’t done a certain way?
* Do you avoid everyday situations or activities because they make you anxious?
* Do you have unexpected attacks of heart-pounding panic?
* Do you feel an impending sense of danger and catastrophe are around every corner?

Signs and indications of anxiety and stress disorders

Because the stress and anxiety disorders are a group of related conditions, rather than a single disorder, they can appear very different from one person to the next. One individual may suffer from intense panic and anxiety attacks that manifest themselves without any warning, while another person gets panicky at the thought of mingling at a party ( there is a theory that self-conciousness and shyness in children may be an early sign of an anxiety illness). I myself would put some credence to this as having suffered from anxiety and panic attacks for most of my life, as a child I was extremely shy and self concious. Someone else may suffer with a disabling concern of driving or uncontrollable, intrusive thoughts. Still another may live in a constant state of tension, worrying about anything and everything.
But despite their different forms, all anxiety disorders share one common major symptom: persistent or severe anxiety or fear in situations where the majority of people wouldn’t feel threatened.

Emotional symptoms of anxiety

In addition to the primary indications of irrational and excessive anxiety and worry, other common emotional manifestations of anxiety include:
* Feelings of agitation, apprehension or dread
* Trouble concentrating
* Feeling tense and jumpy
* Anticipating the worst
* Irritability
* Restlessness
* Watching for signs of danger
* Feeling like your mind’s gone blank

Physical indication of anxiety

Anxiety is more than just a feeling. As a product of the body’s fight-or-flight response, anxiety and stress involves a wide expansion of physical symptoms. Because of the numerous physical symptoms, anxiety and stress sufferers often confuse for a physical medical illness. They may visit dozens of doctors and make numerous trips to the pharmacy before their anxiety disorder is discovered.
Common physical manifestation of stress include:
* Pounding heart
* Sweating ( Hot Sweats )
* Stomach upset or dizziness
* Frequent urination or diarrhea
* Shortness of breath
* Shaking, Tremors and twitches
* Muscle tension
* Headaches
* Fatigue
* Insomnia

The link between Anxiety and depression

Many people with anxiety disorders also suffer from depression at some point. Anxiety and depression are believed to stem from the same biological vulnerability, which may explain why they so often go hand in hand. Since depression makes anxiety worse (and vice versa), it’s important to seek treatment for both conditions.

Anxiety attacks and their symptoms

Anxiety attacks, known as panic attacks in mental health circles, ­are episodes of intense panic or fear. Anxiety attacks usually occur suddenly and without warning. Sometimes there’s an obvious trigger— getting stuck in an elevator, for example, or thinking about the big speech you’re giving in a few hours—but in other cases, the attacks come out of the blue.
Anxiety attacks usually peak within ten minutes, and they rarely last more than a half hour. But during that short time, the terror can be so severe that you feel as if you’re about to die or totally lose control. The physical symptoms are themselves so frightening that many people believe they’re having a heart attack. After an anxiety attack is over, you may be worried about having another one, particularly in a public place where help isn’t available or you can’t easily escape.

Symptoms of an anxiety attack include:
* A Surge of overwhelming panic
* Feeling of losing losing control and going crazy
* Heart palpitations or chest pain
* Feeling like you’re ready to pass out
* Trouble breathing or choking sensation
* Hyperventilation
* Hot flushes or chills
* Trembling or shaking
* Nausea or stomach cramps
* Feeling detached or unreal

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My Best Regards
Ken

Types of Anxiety & Stress Disorders

Types of Anxiety & Stress Disorders

There are six main types of anxiety and stress disorders, each with their own distinct pointer profile: generalized anxiety and stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and social anxiety and stress disorder.

Generalized Anxiety & Stress Disorder
If constant worries and fears distract you from your day-to-day activities or you’re troubled by a persistent comprehension that something wrong is about to happen, you may be feeling symtoms of generalized stress disturbance (GAD). People with GAD are chronic worriers who feel anxious most of the time, though they may not even know why. Anxiety related to GAD often shows up as physical manifestation like insomnia, stomach upset, restlessness, and fatigue.

Panic Disorder
Panic Disorder is characterized by repeated, unexpected anxiety and panic attacks, as well as alarming fears of experiencing another episode. Panic disturbance may also be accompanied by agoraphobia, which is a concern of being in the position where escape from or assistance would be difficult if you had a panic attack. If you have agoraphobia, you are likely to avoid public places or formal functions such as shopping centre, large meeting or confined spaces such as a theatre or an airplane.

Social Anxiety or Stress Disorder
Social anxiety or stress disorder. If you have a debilitating anxiety of being seen negatively by others and humiliated in public, you may have social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia. Social stress or anxiety disorder can be seen as extreme shyness. In severe cases, social circumstance are avoided completely. Performance anxiety(better known as stagefright) is the undoudtedly the most common form of social phobia.

Phobia
A phobia is an unrealistic or exaggerated anxiety of a specific object, activity, or scene that in fact presents little to no danger. Common phobias include a fear of animals such as snakes and spiders, fear of flying, and an anxiety over heights. In the matter of a severe phobia, you could go to extreme lengths to avoid the objects you fear. Unfortunately, avoidance only strengthens the phobia.

Post-Traumatic Stress or Anxiety Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety sickness that may occur as a consequence of a traumatic or life-threatening event. Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks or nightmares picturing what happened, hypervigilance, startling easily, withdrawing from others, and avoiding circumstance that remind you of the event.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterized by unwanted concepts or behaviors that seem impossible to stop or control. If you have OCD, you may be troubled by obsessions, such as a recurring anxiety that you forgot to turn off the cooker, gas fire etc.,  or that you might hurt someone. You may also suffer from uncontrollable compulsions, such as cleaning your hands over and over.

These are briefly the main types of Anxiety and Stress Disorders, but there are also subdivisions within some of these disorders.

As you will know if you have read some of my other posts within this blog, the single most effective treatment I found for my anxiety and panic, was a specific website recommended to me by an alternative practitioner. If you would like to visit this website without obligation please click HERE

My Best Regards
Ken

Anxious Over Anxiety and Panic?

A lot of people who are exerting too much of their brain power usually exhaust not only their physical strength when engaging in various multi-tasking activities, they also tend to over extend their brains up to the point when it plainly needs some good old time for relaxation. A lot of busy people who seem to cannot fathom the idea of relaxing and taking time of from work, as well as their worries, tend to actually start having nervous breakdowns, anxiety depression and all sorts of mental illnesses that can cause a person's sanity to go haywire, fortunately, if you're one of those poor unfortunate ones who are unable to distress and is constantly worried and fussing over things, there are actually available cures and various treatments for treating anxiety depression.

Anxiety depression is actually characterized by all sorts of irregularities and erratic behavior from the person who is suffering from it, this is usuallu due to certain stress triggers that may tend to easily cause a person undue jitters and stress. Also, a lot of people who tend to get easily nervous over stressful activities are actually prone to having anxiety depression, its just a matter of being strong-willed when it comes to facing difficult and stress-prone activities. It may be pretty hard to overcome at first, but trying to be calm and cool in times of extreme pressure is what'll actually save your mental health from going totally downward spiral.

When it comes to effectively curing one's self from a mental illness, one must keep in mind that you have to be actually honest with yourself and assess what kind of depression or mental illness you actually have, go to reputable psychiatrist to get yourself diagnosed correctly as well as be able to get the right depression treatment for yourself. Here are the various types of depression:

Manic or Bipolar depression - characterized by sudden and extreme changes in one's mood wherein one minute he or she is in an elevated state of euphoria while the
next minute (day or week) he or she is feeling to be in a personal hell.

Postpartum depression - characterized by a prolonged sadness and a feeling of emptiness by a new mother wherein physical stress during child birth, an uncertain sense of responsibility towards the new born baby can be just some of the possible factors why some new mother go through this.

Dysthimia - characterized by a slight similarity with depression, although this time, it's been proven to be a lot less severe, but of course with any case, should be treated immediately.

Cyclothemia - characterized by a slight similarity with Manic or Bipolar depression wherein the individual suffering from this mental illness may occasionally suffer from severe changes in one's moods.

Seasonal Affective Disorder - characterized by falling in a rut only during specific seasons (i.e. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall) studies however, prove that more people
actually fall in to a rut more during the Winter and Fall seasons and lastly, Mood swings, wherein a person's mood may shift from happy to sad to angry in just a short time. 

But the type of depression that has actually been proven to be quite common among people is anxiety depression, which is actually characterized by the state of being overly anxious about things. Anxiety, a supposedly normal behavior that'll actually help a person adjust more to a certain stressful activity like first date jitters or a grueling exam the following day. Anxiety actually helps you get psyched up towards facing certain "difficult situations"; anxiety therefore is actually a good thing. Anxiety depression however, is simply the opposite, not to be easily dismissed as a "case of the nerves"; Anxiety depression is in actuality an illness that can be caused from the biological makeup of an individual, or in other words, a hereditary illness.

Also, there are actually various types of Anxiety depression, each having its own unique characteristics. Take for example Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD, this kind of Anxiety depression is a lot more complicated than the average Anxiety depression, in spite of possibly being a day-to-day habit for those who suffer this kind of Anxiety depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder actually makes the individual quite more paranoid than usual, anxiety attacks are more frequent, even absurd at times. They can even be anxious even when there's no apparent reason that calls for them to behave in such a way. People suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder actually shows a lot of symptoms, from lack of sleep, to being unable to relax, getting tired easily, cannot concentrate on what they're doing and even suffering from depression.  This kind of Anxiety depression is still curable; just a little work will actually do the trick.

Consult a reputable cognitive behavior therapist who'll help give the individual the therapy that he or she needs to help him or her loosen up, also prescribed medicines are sort of a must to help these individuals battle anxiety attacks, help them calm down and relax in the short term, but cannot be called a cure.
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Symptoms of Anxiety and Panic

Symptoms of Anxiety and Panic Attacks are varied. Because of the often intense nature of  them they can be misinterpreted as a heart attack, or an indication of equally serious, and greater health problems. They are usually the by-product of some unresolved problems, or unknown personal and emotional past experiences, and do not suggest a major health problem.

For some people the symptoms are much milder, and can be similar to a typical hot flush experienced after drinking a hot strong cup of tea or coffee, or may mistakenly be attributed to bad cuisine you recently had.

Knowing the symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks is the first step in understanding this illness, and to determine whether you are really suffering from it. If you feel you are suffering or in some doubt, you must consult a doctor in the first instance, as this is the only way to get a definitive diagnosis. There is no alternetive unless you see a suitably qualified mental health expert privately, as there are no methods available on the internet that will enable you to diagnose yourself as thoroughly, or as accurately as a trained expert.

Do not be afraid to approach your doctor with this, because he will be sympathetic and understanding because according to the statistics one in five people suffer from depression, anxiety and or panic attacks sometime during their life.

So here is a brief look at the symptoms :

*  Lightheadedness or feeling feint
*  Numbness or tingling                                                                                                
*  Chills or hot flushes or palpitations
*  Pounding heart or increased heart rate
*  Sweating
*  Trembling or shaking
*  Shortness of breath
*  Choking Sensation
*  Chest pain or discomfort
*  Nausea or stomach cramps
*  A feeling of being dizzy
*  Feeling of paranoia in crowded places

While there may not be any online resources for safely diagnosing this illness yourself, there are resources available for alleviating and eliminating them. A doctor will usually prescribe medication to help with the problem, but I believe this is a treatment method that should be avoided. Herbal remedies and medication only offer temporary relief by masking the problem and not dealing with the underlying causes.

Please Click HERE for the only remedy that worked for me

Ken