Anxiety

What Is Anxiety?

Most people experience feelings of anxiety before an important event, such as a big exam, business presentation, or first date. Anxiety disorders, however, are illnesses that load people's lives with overwhelming anxiety and fear that are chronic and unremitting, and that can grow progressively worse. Tormented by panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, flashbacks of traumatic events, nightmares, or countless frightening physical symptoms, some people with anxiety disorders even become housebound.

 

Anxiety disorders, as a group, are the most common mental illness in America. More than 19 million adults in America are affected by these debilitating illnesses each year. Children and adolescents can also develop anxiety disorders (see Anxiety in Children).

 

Types of Anxiety

There are several types of anxiety disorders. These anxiety disorders include:

 

Each anxiety disorder has its own distinct features, but they are all bound together by the common theme of excessive, irrational fear and dread.

Panic disorder includes repeated episodes of intense fear that strike often and without warning. Physical symptoms include:

 

 

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by repeated, unwanted thoughts or compulsive behaviors that seem impossible to stop or control.

 

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) consists of persistent symptoms that occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, such as:

 

 

Nightmares; flashbacks; numbing of emotions; depression; and feeling angry, irritable, or distracted are common. It is also common for people with PTSD to be easily startled. Family members of victims can also develop this disorder.

 

The three types of phobias are social phobia, specific phobias and agoraphobia. People with social phobia have an overwhelming and disabling fear of scrutiny, embarrassment, or humiliation in social situations, which leads to avoidance of many potentially pleasurable and meaningful activities. People with a specific phobia experience extreme, disabling, and irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger. The fear leads to avoidance of objects or situations, and can cause people to limit their lives unnecessarily. Agoraphobia involves intense fear and avoidance of any place or situation where escape might be difficult or help unavailable in the event of developing sudden panic-like symptoms. Agoraphobia rarely occurs in the absence of panic disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder is defined as constant, exaggerated worrisome thoughts and tension about everyday, routine life events and activities. These thoughts must last at least six months to be classified as generalized anxiety disorder. People with this condition almost always anticipate the worst, even though there is little reason to expect it. These feelings are accompanied by physical symptoms, such as:

 

 

What Causes It?

Scientists aren't quite sure why some people get anxiety disorders. Different people exposed to the same situation can react in very different ways. Part of this difference may be in the genes they have inherited.

 

Anxiety disorders run in families, so if a parent has an anxiety disorder, the children have a higher chance of developing one of these conditions. This may be due to the genes they've inherited, but the environment a child is raised in may be important, too. Ultimately, it's probably an interaction between a person's genetic predisposition and environment.

 

Scientists have recently been gaining insights into the development of anxiety disorders. Children of parents with panic disorders have a higher incidence of behavioral disorders very early in life, before you would think major environmental impacts would occur.

 

A growing body of evidence shows that infants who tend to be shy, timid, and constrained in social situations -- even in the first few weeks of life -- have higher rates of anxiety disorders when they get older.

 

Symptoms

Scientists have found that adolescence is an important period for the diagnosis and treatment of an anxiety disorder. Of adolescents who have any one of the mood or anxiety disorders, 42 percent still have an anxiety or depressive disorder in adulthood. In contrast, only 5 percent of adolescents who were healthy go on to develop one of the disorders. It is likely that if we aggressively treat adolescents who suffer from mood and anxiety disorders, we can prevent many of these disorders from becoming chronic.

 

Treatment Options

Anxiety treatment can be effective at any age. If you think you may have an anxiety disorder, don't hesitate to discuss it with your healthcare provider. There are many different types of treatments available, and these can be tailored to specific problems. In some cases, psychotherapy, or counseling, is sufficient. In other cases, medication alone can be effective. Some people may need both.

 

A number of medications that were originally approved for treating depression have been found to be effective for anxiety disorders as well. Some of the newest of these antidepressants are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Other antianxiety medications include groups of drugs called benzodiazepines and beta-blockers. If one medication is not effective, others can be tried. New medications are currently under development to treat anxiety symptoms.

 

Two clinically proven effective forms of psychotherapy used to treat anxiety disorders are behavioral therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Behavioral therapy focuses on changing specific actions, and uses several techniques to stop unwanted behaviors. In addition to the behavioral therapy techniques, cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches patients to understand and change their thinking patterns so that they can react differently to the situations that cause them anxiety.

 

 

Anxiety and Other Conditions

It is common for an anxiety disorder to accompany depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, or another anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders can also co-exist with illnesses such as cancer or heart disease. In such instances, the accompanying disorders will also need to be treated. Before beginning any treatment, however, it is important to have a thorough medical examination to rule out other possible causes of symptoms.

 

 

Statistics on Anxiety

Each year, approximately 19.1 million American adults ages 18 to 54 (about 13.3 percent of people in this age group) have an anxiety disorder.

 

Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with depressive disorders, eating disorders, or substance abuse. Many people have more than one anxiety disorder.

 

Women are more likely than men to have an anxiety disorder. Approximately twice as many women as men suffer from panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, and specific phobia, though about equal numbers of women and men have obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia.