Did you know there are different types of Anxiety Disorders?
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People with this condition have feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. Other symptoms of a panic attack include sweating, chest pain, palpitations (unusually strong or irregular heartbeats), and a feeling of choking, which may make the person feel like he or she is having a heart attack or "going crazy."
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD):
People with OCD are plagued by constant thoughts or fears that cause them to perform certain rituals or routines. The disturbing thoughts are called obsessions, and the rituals are called compulsions. An example is a person with an unreasonable fear of germs who constantly washes his or her hands.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):
PTSD is a condition that can develop following a traumatic and/or terrifying event, such as a sexual or physical assault, the unexpected death of a loved one, or a natural disaster. People with PTSD often have lasting and frightening thoughts and memories of the event and tend to be emotionally numb.
Social anxiety disorder:
Also called social phobia, social anxiety disorder involves overwhelming worry and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. The worry often centers on a fear of being judged by others, or behaving in a way that might cause embarrassment or lead to ridicule.
Specific phobias:
A specific phobia is an intense fear of a specific object or situation, such as snakes, heights, or flying. The level of fear is usually inappropriate to the situation and may cause the person to avoid common, everyday situations.
Generalized anxiety disorder:
This disorder involves excessive, unrealistic worry and tension, even if there is little or nothing to provoke the anxiety.
Panic disorderPeople with this condition have feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. Other symptoms of a panic attack include sweating, chest pain, palpitations (unusually strong or irregular heartbeats), and a feeling of choking, which may make the person feel like he or she is having a heart attack or "going crazy."
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD):
People with OCD are plagued by constant thoughts or fears that cause them to perform certain rituals or routines. The disturbing thoughts are called obsessions, and the rituals are called compulsions. An example is a person with an unreasonable fear of germs who constantly washes his or her hands.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):
PTSD is a condition that can develop following a traumatic and/or terrifying event, such as a sexual or physical assault, the unexpected death of a loved one, or a natural disaster. People with PTSD often have lasting and frightening thoughts and memories of the event and tend to be emotionally numb.
Social anxiety disorder:
Also called social phobia, social anxiety disorder involves overwhelming worry and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. The worry often centers on a fear of being judged by others, or behaving in a way that might cause embarrassment or lead to ridicule.
Specific phobias:
A specific phobia is an intense fear of a specific object or situation, such as snakes, heights, or flying. The level of fear is usually inappropriate to the situation and may cause the person to avoid common, everyday situations.
Generalized anxiety disorder:
This disorder involves excessive, unrealistic worry and tension, even if there is little or nothing to provoke the anxiety.
Disorder specific facts
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):
- GAD affects 6.8 million adults, or 3.1% of the U.S. population.
- Women are twice as likely to be affected as men.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD):
- 2.2 million, 1.0%
- Equally common among men and women.
- The median age of onset is 19, with 25 percent of cases occurring by age 14.
- One-third of affected adults first experienced symptoms in childhood.
- Hoarding is the compulsive purchasing, acquiring, searching, and saving of items that have little or no value.
Panic Disorder:
- 6 million, 2.7%
- Women are twice as likely to be affected as men.
- Very high comorbidity rate with major depression.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
- 7.7 million, 3.5%
- Women are more likely to be affected than men.
Social Anxiety Disorder:
- 15 million, 6.8%
- Equally common among men and women
- Typically beginning around age 13.
- According to a 2007 ADAA survey, 36% of people with social anxiety disorder report experiencing symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help.
Specific Phobias:
- 19 million, 8.7%
- Women are twice as likely to be affected as men.
- Typically begins in childhood; the median age of onset is 7.
Related Illnesses:
Many people with an anxiety disorder also have a co-occurring disorder or physical illness, which can make their symptoms worse and recovery more difficult. It’s essential to be treated for both disorders.
General facts
- Anxiety disorders affect 5% of the household population, causing mild to severe impairment.
- Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet only about one-third of those suffering receive treatment.
- People with an anxiety disorder are three to five times more likely to go to the doctor and six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders than those who do not suffer from anxiety disorders.
- Anxiety disorders develop from a complex set of risk factors, including genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life events.
- In the absence of treatment, children who were experiencing clinical levels of anxiety in kindergarten continued to experience similar levels of anxiety in the sixth grade.
- By age 20, those who had experienced chronically high levels of anxiety during childhood were significantly less likely to have graduated from high school than their peers.
- Children with high anxiety levels also report lower levels of social acceptance and self-esteem
General signs and symptoms list:
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Anxiety and bullying; the connection.
- Victims of bullying are more likely to be anxious than students who are not bullied
- Students who are bullied and bully others (bully-victims) have been found to have higher levels of anxiety than students otherwise involved in bullying or not involved
- Students who reported that they were victims or bully-victims on a frequent basis endorsed significantly higher levels of anxiety than their peers
- Students who were bullied less frequently also reported elevated levels of anxiety
- Overt victimization (i.e., experiencing attempts or threats to harm one’s physical well being), and relational victimization (i.e., experiencing attempts or threats to harm one’s peer relationships), were both associated with heightened levels of social anxiety for males and females ages 13-16 (14).
- Students who were bullied in multiple forms endorsed higher social anxiety levels than those who reported one form of victimization.
- Students who reported relational victimization endorsed social anxiety levels similar to those endorsed by students who reported relational and overt victimization, which suggests that perhaps relational victimization is more strongly linked to social anxiety.
- Boys 14-18 years of age who were bullied by being called “gay” endorsed higher levels of anxiety than their peers who were bullied for other reasons (13). Thus, being called “gay” seemed to be more strongly linked to anxiety than other forms of victimization.
How can you overcome it?
Identify the source of your anxiety: Whether you have a panic attack or a sudden bout of worry and fear, it is important to determine what is causing your anxiety. Is something in your environment the primary source? Is a possible mishap the origin? Is an impending activity, meeting, or event the cause? You can handle a fear much easier when you are clear about what it is.
Determine if your worry is solvable: If you know what your fear is, the next step is to determine if it is something you can deal with, or something that only time (or your imagination) can manage. If your fear is largely imagination or can’t be dealt with now, then make the conscious effort to put it out of your mind. If your worry is something that needs to be dealt with, then take steps to create a course of action.
Consider the worst: If your fear is mind-consuming, take a moment to think about the honest and absolute worse thing that could happen as a result of it. Perhaps you’re getting ready to do a huge presentation, and you begin to panic. Stop and think “what is the worst that could happen?” No matter how creative your response may be, thinking critically will lead to to find that should it occur, there are few endings that can’t be dealt with in a reasonable manner.
Accept uncertainty: It can be tough to stop worrying when you’re never quite sure how a scenario will play out. At this point, it is important to simply accept the ever-present fact of uncertainty. We can’t know how something will go, or what the ending may be; worrying about the unknown is an unnecessary source of fear that can be avoided with the simple acceptance of chance.
Consider the use of your worry: You are worried for a reason - anxiety is a fear response to a real or imagined scenario. Problems arise when we begin worrying about things that don’t actually cause us danger. So, think about the purpose of your worry. Is it helpful? If you’re afraid of a legitimately dangerous situation, then your worry is being put to good use. If however, you are anxious without a purpose, then your worry has the best of you. Remembering that can help to bring you down off of an anxiety high.
Focus on both the positive and the negative: When you are anxious about something, it can be incredibly easy to see only the negative aspects of it. As with all things though, there must be a positive facet to your fear-filled situation as well. Don’t focus on a single negative event while completely ignoring other related positives ones at the same time.
Avoid thinking in terms of "all or nothing.": No matter what situation is about to go down, it’s unlikely that the outcome is completely black or white. Don’t allow yourself to ignore gray areas and over dramatize something. For example, assuming that if you don’t get accepted to a particular college, you’re a total failure and nobody will want you. This type of thinking is common with anxiety, but is also totally irrational.
Don’t make it into a catastrophe: If your fear is of something non-dangerous and possibly even imagined, one of the surefire ways to make it worse is to turn it into a catastrophe. If you’re anxious about flying on a plane, and at the first sign of turbulence turn it into a crash, you are making your anxiety worse. See every situation as it really is, rather than what it could be.
Try not to jump to conclusions: If you lack facts and have yet to experience your worry or fear, then jumping to conclusions about what might happen will do you no good. If an uncertainty lays before you, you can reduce your anxiety by realizing (and admitting) that you don’t know what may happen. Consider all possible outcomes, rather than jumping to the most morbid or unlikely.
Don’t let your emotions control your reasoning: When you’re scared and anxious, it is easy to let emotions get in the way of logic. Your emotions will do just that though, and they will fool you into thinking you are in more danger than you really are. Don’t let your fear convince you you are in danger, unless you really are. The same goes with all negative anxiety-based emotions, including stress, guilt, and embarrassment.
Avoid making everything personal: When anxiety strikes, don’t allow it to force you to take blame for a situation outside of your control. If you’re anxious and scared because your house was broken into, it may be easy to take it personally and blame yourself for the break-in. This type of thinking is illogical though, and will make you feel worse. Unless you invited thieves knowingly into your home, you can’t be held accountable for the robbing they did.
Determine if your worry is solvable: If you know what your fear is, the next step is to determine if it is something you can deal with, or something that only time (or your imagination) can manage. If your fear is largely imagination or can’t be dealt with now, then make the conscious effort to put it out of your mind. If your worry is something that needs to be dealt with, then take steps to create a course of action.
- What can you do to lessen this fear or worry?
- Is this a long term or a short term fix?
- What can I do to prevent this worry or fear from recurring?
Consider the worst: If your fear is mind-consuming, take a moment to think about the honest and absolute worse thing that could happen as a result of it. Perhaps you’re getting ready to do a huge presentation, and you begin to panic. Stop and think “what is the worst that could happen?” No matter how creative your response may be, thinking critically will lead to to find that should it occur, there are few endings that can’t be dealt with in a reasonable manner.
Accept uncertainty: It can be tough to stop worrying when you’re never quite sure how a scenario will play out. At this point, it is important to simply accept the ever-present fact of uncertainty. We can’t know how something will go, or what the ending may be; worrying about the unknown is an unnecessary source of fear that can be avoided with the simple acceptance of chance.
Consider the use of your worry: You are worried for a reason - anxiety is a fear response to a real or imagined scenario. Problems arise when we begin worrying about things that don’t actually cause us danger. So, think about the purpose of your worry. Is it helpful? If you’re afraid of a legitimately dangerous situation, then your worry is being put to good use. If however, you are anxious without a purpose, then your worry has the best of you. Remembering that can help to bring you down off of an anxiety high.
Focus on both the positive and the negative: When you are anxious about something, it can be incredibly easy to see only the negative aspects of it. As with all things though, there must be a positive facet to your fear-filled situation as well. Don’t focus on a single negative event while completely ignoring other related positives ones at the same time.
Avoid thinking in terms of "all or nothing.": No matter what situation is about to go down, it’s unlikely that the outcome is completely black or white. Don’t allow yourself to ignore gray areas and over dramatize something. For example, assuming that if you don’t get accepted to a particular college, you’re a total failure and nobody will want you. This type of thinking is common with anxiety, but is also totally irrational.
Don’t make it into a catastrophe: If your fear is of something non-dangerous and possibly even imagined, one of the surefire ways to make it worse is to turn it into a catastrophe. If you’re anxious about flying on a plane, and at the first sign of turbulence turn it into a crash, you are making your anxiety worse. See every situation as it really is, rather than what it could be.
Try not to jump to conclusions: If you lack facts and have yet to experience your worry or fear, then jumping to conclusions about what might happen will do you no good. If an uncertainty lays before you, you can reduce your anxiety by realizing (and admitting) that you don’t know what may happen. Consider all possible outcomes, rather than jumping to the most morbid or unlikely.
Don’t let your emotions control your reasoning: When you’re scared and anxious, it is easy to let emotions get in the way of logic. Your emotions will do just that though, and they will fool you into thinking you are in more danger than you really are. Don’t let your fear convince you you are in danger, unless you really are. The same goes with all negative anxiety-based emotions, including stress, guilt, and embarrassment.
Avoid making everything personal: When anxiety strikes, don’t allow it to force you to take blame for a situation outside of your control. If you’re anxious and scared because your house was broken into, it may be easy to take it personally and blame yourself for the break-in. This type of thinking is illogical though, and will make you feel worse. Unless you invited thieves knowingly into your home, you can’t be held accountable for the robbing they did.
Self -help resources
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Sources:
http://www.wikihow.com/Overcome-Anxiety
http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/mental-health-anxiety-disorders
http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics
http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics
http://www.education.com/reference/article/bullying-anxiety-what-connection/
http://www.wikihow.com/Overcome-Anxiety
http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/mental-health-anxiety-disorders
http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics
http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics
http://www.education.com/reference/article/bullying-anxiety-what-connection/