Anxiety And Stress
Posts tagged Anxiety Panic
General anxiety disorder: Symptoms and treatments – Part 1
Feb 20th
Generalized Anxiety Disorder- The Real Deal
“Get over it” is that what we tell, or at least think, when one of our friends or a family member has a situation or unrealistic worries? Do we ever consider that they may not be able to just get over it or stop frantic worrying? Our loved ones may be dealing with a real illness and need real help, not criticism.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a real illness, and is the most common mental health problem in the United States. According to the American Psychiatric Association, more than 25 million Americans suffer from these disorders. Children as well as adults are afflicted. There are several types of anxiety disorders such as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Phobias.

Anxiety creates stress for all of us, at some time, to varying degrees, but it becomes a disorder when it can no longer be seen as rational, or it is adversely affecting someone’s life. Individuals suffer extreme worry, anxiety, panic, and/or an overwhelming fear of losing control. there are many physical symptoms as well. Anxiety disorders hinder people from coping with their daily life, let alone enjoying it to the fullest.
If you, or anyone you know, suffer from the following symptoms, it is advisable to encourage and/or seek out medical attention. Here is a list of the more common symptoms of the above anxiety disorders:
PTSD – Overwhelming feeling of panic or fear
- Flashback/reliving of traumatic event
- Nightmares
- Insomnia
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Uncontrollable worrisome thoughts about everyday things, without just cause, often exaggerated, lasting for six months.
Although, treatment may be warranted earlier
- Irritability
- Trouble falling or staying asleep
Panic Disorder
- Overwhelming feeling of panic
- Avoidance of people or places
- Fear of losing control
OCD - Obsessive thoughts, such as germ contamination
– Repetitive actions, such as washing hands or checking if
windows are locked.
– Repeating phrases, numbers etc
Phobias – Fear that triggers intense anxiety
Many physical symptoms add to the difficulty of anxiety disorders. The following symptoms spread across much of the disorders. Many people feel nauseous, or their heart races so fast that they feel like they cannot breathe. They often have headaches, feel
Challenges faced by those living with anxiety disorders
Nov 22nd
The challenges faced by those living with anxiety disorders is a never ending list. For each person that list is different, but the amount of challenges they must deal with remain the same. What a person with no anxiety order does with the utmost ease, the person with an anxiety disorder might not be able to do, or does it with severe levels of discomfort.
Many people do not understand how anxiety can limit a person. They make assumptions that it only lasts a few moments, or is just a minor discomfort. Others think that people just need to get over it. Regardless of all that, until you have suffered from an anxiety disorder you do not know how challenging it is to deal with let alone what the person suffering from it goes through on a daily basis.
I myself have an anxiety disorder and can honestly say that not a day goes by where I have to face one challenge or more. Almost everything is a challenge in my life. Each day is a new obstacle to overcome and deal with. Every little thing becomes a small achievement to celebrate. This is how I have learned to live my life and look at it. I have suffered from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder for most of my adult life.
The challenges I faced, my list if you will entailed getting to class, going out to eat, being in public, going to the store, taking tests, having people over, getting to work, dating, getting up in the morning, trying to think positive..and so on. I looked at my list of challenges and was immediately overwhelmed.
I stayed overwhelmed for a few years and this only made the challenges grow and the anxiety worsen. My quality of life sucked, and I was tired of seeing other people living their life while I sat on the sidelines. Then I decided to put it into bite size pieces. I found a therapist, got on a medication and started to deal with my anxiety.
Slowly but surely I was able to meet my challenges and overcome them. I started by going to coffee shops and staying for a cup of tea. I worked my way up to eating a meal. After that I went to a movie. It was almost unbearable to stay the first few times. My anxiety was so bad, but after I made myself stay I was actually quite proud. Might seem silly to some to be proud of something so minor, but to those who have never suffered from an anxiety related disorder, it is an accomplishment that is difficult to explain.
While having generalized anxiety and or panic disorder can and does limit your life, make no mistake about that. It also makes those who suffer from it work hard to better their lives in simple ways. Things that are a challenge to them, when overcome are celebrated. Things overcome give back some self confidence and self esteem that has been taken away by so many limitations and challenges.
While the list of challenges is endless depending on the severity of the anxiety disorder. The situation is not hopeless. With a good support system, therapy, medication if necessary, and a willingness and desire to get better, those challenges can be faced.
The difference between anxiety and panic attacks
Mar 18th
While anxiety and panic attacks share some similar characteristics there are some significant differences in the manner they attack and effect their host. Both are serious dilemmas which need to be professionally treated as they can become crippling disorders that have such a negative impact on life that a person can no longer function in a meanigful way if the go unaddressed. What follows is an overview of anxiety attacks and a panic attacks and their differences.
We all to some degree deal with anxiety in our lives, some do so in a manner which allows them to effectively deal with it and others for whatever reason are unable to do so. An anxiety attack is like a piggy bank. For most people little bits an pieces of anxiety build up like pennies. Anxiety can be caused by literally anything, jobs, finances, relationship woes, worrying about a performance, or anything you can think of. Getting back to the piggy bank, we take each penny (Bit of anxiety) and plave it in the piggy bank until some future date. Sometimes the issue resolves itself and the penny disappears from the piggy bank.
There are times when the pennies build up so quickly and no resolution is found that they take up all the space in the piggy bank and when that happens an anxiety attack is on the cusp. There is simoly no more room to store anything. Only two things can happen at that time, the person deals with the issues and empties the bank, or they find it too overwhelming to deal with and that is when the anxiety attack occurs. It is easy to think of in relation to the term “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” It is important to note it isn’t just worrying about finances or a job, etc… that causes anxiety but the way a person deals with those issues that can cause anxiety.
The thing about an anxiety attack is it can be traced back to specific issues that led up to it. There is a chronology and logic to it. It can be identified and dealt with so that in the future such things can be avoided or lessened and the sufferer is equipped to cope with anxiety in a manner that doesn’t allow anxiety attacks to occur, or at the very least be common place.
A panic attack by comparison is less clear. In some cases a panic attack is misidentified as an anxiety attack. A panic attack is like a bullet, it just arrives without warning and invades the host out of the blue. Panic attacks come with extreme physical symptoms that are so intense a feeling of impending disaster or even death is not uncommon. Rapid shallow breathing, gasping, rapid heart rate, the inability to swallow, numbness, trembling, dizziness, and sudden perspiration are all hallmarks of a panic attack.
An anxiety attack is a buildup that comes on slowly and lingers, sometimes a mild to moderate anxiety attack can stretch out as long as a couple days. A panic attack is quick, it comes on fast and rarely lasts beyond a half hour. A panic attack comes with extremely heightened pysical reactions while an anxiety attacks physical reactions are no less real but not as intense. An anxiety attack can generally be traced back to the manner in which a person has ineffectively dealt with several situations that cause anxiety while a panic attack can be triggered by situations that have never caused a person anxiety before.
The cold hard fact is there is no absolute when dealing with panic and anxiety attacks. Different professionals have a different take on the genesis of these phenomena. The differences between the two can seem very subtle on paper but the actual pysical and emotional manifestation of the two is as different as night and day as any sufferer of the two can readily tell you.