Anxiety is a natural emotional response to stress. To put it plainly, it is fear about what is to come and/or happen. Anxiety is unpleasant, surely, however, with the occasional stress of work, goals, and pursuing hobbies, anxiety comes as a by-product. That is how your psyche gets motivated to take action and make changes as per your imagination. There is a lot of it to anxiety and the disorders it comes with. However, don’t worry, this piece is everything you need to know about anxiety.
Ordinary anxiety is natural and comes and goes as per the circumstances in one’s life. However, anxiety may sometimes get extreme. It may come to the point where it becomes interfering with your lifestyle and lasts for months and months. If such is the scenario, then you might have an anxiety disorder.
What is an anxiety disorder?
The volatile, conflicting feeling of fear concerning what is about to happen becomes consistent. If this is the case, then the anxiety may no more be ordinary. The anxiousness may start to stay with you all the time and get intense. Then it may very well be a cause of an anxiety disorder.
An anxiety disorder may negatively interfere with your daily actions. It may cause you to become relatively inactive in a manner that you may no longer feel motivated. You may even start thinking twice before leaving your comfort spots. And once an individual begins facing issues like these, it is advisable to seek help at the earliest. If left untreated, these disorders usually tend to get worse with time and neglect.
Types of anxiety disorders| Everything you need to know about anxiety
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
This type of anxiety disorder messes with your daily routine and lifestyle in a quite intrusive manner. There is this underlying, ongoing worry which may or may not come along with certain physical issues like easy fatigue, problems falling asleep, restlessness, losing temper quite often, etc. The disorder is term ‘generalised’, as often the focus is on day-to-day hurdles and activities and responsibilities.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorders are a form of anxiety disorder. The rudimentary symptom of the disorder is periodic panic attacks that are quite recurrent in nature. These panic attacks usually pose great amounts of distress to the bearer. They may cause individuals to suffer from one or more of the following symptoms:
- Sweating
- Trembling
- Passing out
- Feeling dizzy
- Shortness of breath
- Claustrophobia
- Nausea
- Rising heart rate
- Uncomfort
Panic attacks and their symptoms can be severe. They usually begin with the beginning of the phase of young adulthood. That is the stage most people face most crisis, of all sorts, during that phase. They are not solitary and may occur in an individual alongside other mental disorders.
Phobia(s)
A phobia is a persistent fear within an individual, of a situation or an inanimate object or a living creature, an activity, or a specific situation. The fear is excessive, and usually, not of anything particularly harmful. Phobias may cause excessive distress to both the mental and physical health of the individual suffering from them.
Separation Anxiety Disorder
Separation anxiety disorder makes the sufferer stay on their toes throughout. There is a lingering feeling of discomfort that they might soon face separation from a person who is close to them. It may be even be a place or an object close to their heart. This disorder is a form of insecurity. If not addressed early in the process, it might pose problems to the physical well-being of the individual too.
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is the relatively lesser known of all the anxiety disorders we are discussing today. It is the persistent fear of being in a situation concerning seeking help to get out of the situation or evasion. It happens in a situation that may seem difficult to escape from. Usually, the fear is blown out of proportion as compared to the danger involved in any given situation. This form of anxiety disorder forces the individual to actively avoid participation in activities inducing fear. And exactly like any other anxiety disorder, agoraphobia must be addressed as quickly as it can be. Untimely redressal may pose a serious intrusion into the sufferer’s life.
Social Anxiety Disorder
An individual suffering from social anxiety disorder generally tries minimising social interactions and keeps it capped to only certain known individuals or groups. The fundamental idea behind avoiding social interaction is to save themselves from the discomfort. Discomfort of being looked down on, discomfort of being humiliated and embarrassed in a social setting, etc. If left unaddressed, it may lead to the sufferer missing out on opportunities that may lie ahead of them. Some common examples of social anxiety disorder are- fear of going to a crowded place, going out for food or drinks to a happening place, etc.
Now that we know everything about anxiety, let’s dive deep into its diagnosis and treatment.
Diagnosis
The first step toward diagnosis of anxiety is to figure out along with your primary care provider if your anxiety relates to your physical health. However, if the anxiety disorder is severe, you may need to consult with a mental healthcare specialist. The foremost step a psychiatrist may consider is to diagnose through various means. Following which, he may move to counselling to take care of the underlying causes. This counselling, to get to the roots of the things, is called psychotherapy. It’s a way to figure out a way out of a mental disorder.
In order to extensively diagnose the disorder, the mental healthcare specialist may use the following aids:
- A psychological evaluation: The mental health specialist may diagnose you by holding a sitting session to discuss your thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. This is to help yourself connect the dots and figure out the disorder completely.
- The DSM-5: The specialist may also make use of the standards and criteria mentioned in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM-5 has been published to diagnose anxiety disorders.
Treatment
The mental health specialist, upon inspection of the disorder, may use a combination of psychotherapy and medications. Finding out the best mode of treatment for an individual depends on the specialist. It also depends on the results after trial and error conducted by the specialist.
- Psychotherapy- Psychotherapy involves working along with a counsellor or therapist to figure out the underlying cause(s) of your anxiety disorder(s). Therapy is an effective mode of treatment, especially when it comes to mental disorders and stability issues.
- Medication- Your therapist, depending upon the form of anxiety disorder, may also prescribe medication to help you relieve the symptoms. While prescribing the medication, the therapist needs to be mindful of your other physical and mental health issues. Also, there may be certain medicines that may be prescribed for more than just one kind of mental disorder.
This was everything you need to know about anxiety.
Therapy with PinkyMind
PinkyMind, being one of the best and with premier specialists, is a great place to begin. Not only does it have well-trained, professional psychiatrists but also various other coaches to help you understand yourself better. It’s a ‘safe space’ for every person to be himself without the expectations of being judged or thought of adversely.
There are several helpful parts to both the website and the application experience. There are Self-help Guided Wellness Programs that have been designed and developed alongside several professional therapists, counsellors, coaches & trainers. To add to the pile of goodness, there is calm meditation music to surf and vibe to.
So, what’s there to think about? You could constantly be finding yourself in a tough spot in your life. And could be wondering about the causes of your mental instability. If that is the case, then we could be of some help to you! Everybody might not necessarily need countless sessions with their therapist. Sometimes, sitting down once and letting it all out for the specialist to examine might just do the trick.
Congratulations, now you know everything there is to know about anxiety.
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