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Anxiety Disorders Paper

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Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in the United States and women are over twice as likely to suffer from anxiety than men (Kessler et al., 2005). The symptoms of anxiety can be life disrupting; affecting personal and professional relationships, sleep, appetite, health, and overall quality of life. The causes of anxiety seem ever-present and there is no indication the situation is going to improve in the immediate future. Global politics, war, domestic terrorism, rising health care costs, and economic instability are but a few of the surfeit anxiety causing stressors individuals must endure while also managing daily pressures of everyday life.
Greenberg et al., (1999) stated anxiety disorders will cost the United States over 43 …show more content…

McCarty and Shaffer (2015) state "we now know that the normal resting rhythm of the heart is highly variable rather than being monotonously regular..." (p. 47) showing the need for a new type of control technique. As a stand-alone treatment, HRV is shown to influence the regulatory system of the heart allowing for controlled, rhythmic beating in the patient using the HRV biofeedback device.
The use of breathing techniques to control anxiety is nothing new, but the addition of a device showing how that breath work affects heart rate is. Physical and mental relaxation are proven results through the use of HRV biofeedback. HRV biofeedback devices allow the user to control the sympathetic nervous system response of fight or flight during an anxiety event resulting in a relaxed and present minded patient (Prinsloo et al., …show more content…

Katzman (2009) briefly reviews the symptoms of GAD that make it so difficult to cope with. GAD is recognized by general excessive worrying, symptoms of hyper vigilance, hyper-arousal, and general nonspecific anxiety. These abstract symptoms often express themselves somatically as well. Tension, fatigue, chest pain, sleep disturbance, irritable bowel syndrome, and other significant co-morbid physical ailments, like heart disease and diabetes, are all ways GAD can be physically manifested. Cuijpers et al. (2014) elaborates on the ailments associated with GAD and emphasizes the restlessness, problems concentrating, and general autonomic nervous system arousal, all symptoms that deem it a "disabling mental disorder" (p. 131). Furthermore, a meta-analysis by Haller et al. (2014) reveals that participants with GAD experienced levels of distress that were significantly higher than controls and they also experienced a much lower level of functioning within the realm of daily psychosocial activities. Functional impairment and distress are highly reported within this population and is an essential criterion of the DSM

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