Anxiety Treatment

Everybody experiences anxiety to some degree, from time to time. It is common to feel anxious before an exam or a first date, or a job interview for example. In such situations, anxiety is a normal, healthy response to stress in our environment. It can even be a motivational factor in our performance, and we shouldn’t worry about it, or to get rid of it completely. This sort of anxiety can make you feel more focused and alert and, help you to perform at your best.

Sometimes however, anxiety becomes much more severe, and this feeling can take over and begin to interfere with everyday life. In such situations people usually report that they spend plenty of their time in a state of heightened stress, and they find it difficult to stop worrying. This is when stress begins to have adverse effects on people’s mental health and well-being. If the feeling of profound distress is not addressed, it can contribute to development of other mental health problems, such as depression. In such situations it is also typical that people develop a range of physical symptoms, from gastro-intestinal distress to skin problems.

Types of Anxiety

Social Anxiety

It’s normal to feel little anxious in social situations, such as, giving a speech at a wedding, doing a presentation to work colleagues. Feeling others focusing their attention on us, especially if they’re strangers  usually triggers anxiety and nervousness, both in the lead-up and during the event. Some people fell anxious in social situations; this is commonly referred to as social anxiety. A person usually experiences an intense fear of being criticised, embarrassed or humiliated by others in everyday situations.  Typical examples of such situations are making a small talk, speaking publicly, eating in public, being assertive at work.

Specific Phobias

Specific phobias describe situations when a person feels very fearful about a particular object or  situation. There are many different types of phobias, such as spiders, lifts, opened spaces, heights, or planes. People may go to great lengths to avoid them. To some extent fear is a normal response to situations that can pose a threat to our safety. However, if we become highly stressed in situations that are not seen by other as anxiety provoking, that mens that our belief about the danger is exaggerated, or we imagine it. Such exaggerated sense of danger typically leads to feelings of fear, terror and panic, that are completely out of proportion. Sometimes, even merely thinking about, or seeing an object of our fears on TV, is enough to cause an anxious reaction. Such excessive reactions are usually signs of a specific phobia.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Most people feel anxious and worried from time to time, and in specific stressful situations, such as taking an exam, speaking in public, or being interviewed for a job. People with GAD, however, feel nervous and worried most of the time, not just in specific stressful situations. Their worries are usually intense, persistent and interfere with their normal lives. Their may worry about a variety of different things including work, personal and family health, personal or family financial issues. Sometimes it can be a general sense of an impending doom that paralyses a person. Failing at simple tasks, such as being late for an appointment, or household chores can become the focus of anxiety. It may lead to believing that something terrible will happen, and uncontrollable worries.

Panic Disorder

The term Panic disorder is used to describe situations when panic attacks are frequent and disabling. Typical characteristics are:

• Panic attacks come unexpected (out of the blue) and occur regularly.
• A person worries for a long time (at least a month), after having a panic attack that they will have another one.
• A person worries about the consequences of a having panic attacks. Typical is a worry that attacks are a sign of an undiagnosed medical condition). Further, a person can insist on performing repeated medical tests, and feel very anxious despite reassurance.
• A person’s behaviour related to the panic attacks changes significantly. A typical example of this is avoiding exercising because it leads to an increase in the heart rate).

During a panic attack, a person is suddenly overwhelmed by the intense worries and physical sensations described above. Such state of distress usually peaks within about 10 minutes and usually last for up to half an hour. This leaves a person feeling tired or exhausted. Panic attacks can happen only once every few years, or they can occur several times a day.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

In moderation, anxious thoughts can have a positive and helpful impact on our behaviour. For example, thinking “I may have forgotten to lock the door” leads to you checking the door lock to keep things safe.

However, if the same thoughts become occur frequently and are obsessive, it can trigger an unhealthy patterns of behaviour. In the above example this would be checking the door lock several times before we leave the house.  This is likely to cause difficulties in daily functioning of a person. In OCD the frequent thoughts are known as obsessions, and the repeated behaviours are known as compulsions. Those who suffer from OCD perform this acts of checking to alleviate the distress or neutralise their thoughts, or both.

It is common that people with OCD experience a sense of an intense shame about their need to carry out these compulsions. Feeling shamed of their behaviour can exacerbate the problem. If a person resorts to checking in secrecy it can cause a delay in diagnosis and treatment. Further, it can also result in social disability, such as adults becoming housebound, or children failing to attend school.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex set of reactions that is being developed in response to  experiencing a traumatic event which threatened life or safety of a person, or others around them. Among the common examples of traumatic events are car, or other serious accidents, physical or sexual assault, being on a battlefield, being tortured, or disasters such as floods or fires.  If the PTSD reaction is formed a the person experiences feelings of intense fear, sense of hopelessness and helplessness, or horror.