Essay about Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders and Methods of Treatment

Anxiety affects the entire person. It affects the physiological, behavioral and psychologically. Physiological anxiety include body reactions like rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, queasiness, dry mouth and sweating. Behavioral it can interfere with the ability to act, express yourself or handle everyday situations. Psychologically anxiety causes apprehension and uneasiness. It can cause one to feel detached from one’s body or fearful of dying or going crazy. Criteria must be met are 1. Symptoms must interfere with important areas of functioning or cause marked distress. 2. Symptoms are not caused by a drug or a medical condition. 3. The fears and anxieties are distinct from the symptoms of another anxiety disorder (Kring, p. 174).

Examples of anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias and separation anxiety disorder. It’s possible that an individual can have more than one anxiety disorder. Individuals who suffer from anxiety disorders have a distinct fear of social situations; this worry is often centered on a fear of being judged by others, or behaving in a way that might create unease.

This paper explores anxiety and depression at length including a discussion on their similarities and differences. Other areas that will be examined in this research paper include describing just what anxiety is and how this mental disorder presents, different types of anxiety disorders and their symptoms and what treatment interventions are offered that help cope with this disorder. Depression is also explored as well as its prevalence, signs and symptoms of this mental health diagnosis and different ways depression is treated. Other factors included in this research paper will also explore how both anxiety and depression can affect one’s occupational performance.

Fear is a powerful human emotion. It can make you do things you wouldn’t normally do, like risk taking and bad choices. Fear can spike your adrenaline. For example if someone was to lift a car off a run over child, that would be caused by adrenaline, which is caused by fear. According to several studies done by physicians

The panic disorder results from an anxiety disorder that causes panic attacks to happen. An example would be when the phone suddenly rings and it makes your heart start to race, or all of a sudden you feel this overwhelming sense of terror even though there is no reason for it. Panic attacks can cause severe physical reactions and sometimes they can feel frightening to the individual that is having the panic attack. The attack can last 10-20 minutes and sometimes it can continue for an hour if it is not controlled. Panic attacks have rushed people to the emergency rooms (ER) because it is frequently mistaken more than often of having all the symptoms of a heart attack, stroke or even a seizure. The symptoms that are characterized by this attack are: feeling weak all of a sudden, tingling or numbness in the hands and fingers, sense of terror of impending death or doom, feeling faint or lightheaded, sweaty hands, having body chills, chest pain, racing heart, breathing difficulties and feeling like your whole body is losing sense of

Fear is a chemical chain reaction in the brain. It is in the part of the brain that allows us to communicate and to speak with other people ("Layton, Julia"). The idea is an autonomic response in the brain with many parts of the brain involved. Fear starts with a scary stimulus and ends with a fight or flight response telling the human to fight back or run away. It starts with two processes the quick and messy way, and the clear and slow way ("Layton, Julia"). The quick way is when you are panicking and out of breath and the clear way takes a while and is when you calm down and realize it was nothing. Both of the processes happen simultaneously ("Layton, Julia"). The brain uses your blood stream and nervous system to create fear. When your muscles tighten and your heart races, you are probably in a state of fear. Without fear you would walk into traffic or pick up poisonous snakes. Fear saves our lives ("Layton,

About three percent of men and women in the U.S. suffer from Generalized anxiety disorder (APAA). It is one of the most common forms of anxiety and seems to be the most left untreated because people don’t know that it can be treated (McGradles). GAD, although it affects many, is a disorder that can be detrimental to the quality of life of an individual. With the regard to the quality of life, the level of severity that a person experiences is a great factor in determining more information. The accumulated information is a defining feature in figuring the dissimilarity of the normal fight or flight response and the diagnoses of GAD. The disorder itself is that of excessive worry (AnxietyBC) about everyday

Fear is an emotional response made by a threat, which causes a change in brain and organ function, as well as behavior. It is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something or someone is dangerous and likely to cause paint or threat. Usually fear is caused by something traumatizing that has happened in one’s life. In order to overcome fear, you have to face it. Avoiding fear prevents people from moving forward and standing up to fearful things help move past that fear. (Towey)

Generalized anxiety disorder(GAD) is much more than the normal anxiety people experience everyday. It is a chronic condition that is chracterized by excessive worry and anxiety, even though there aren't any reasonable explanations for the cause. It is diagnosed when a person spends a least 6 months worrying excessively about numerous everyday problems.

Social anxiety disorder, which is also called social phobia 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. The fear may be made worse by a lack of social skills or experience in social situations. The anxiety can build into a panic attack. As a result of the fear, the person endures certain social situations in extreme distress or may avoid them altogether. In addition, people with social anxiety disorder often suffer anticipatory anxiety, the fear of a situation before it even happens, for days or weeks before the event. In many cases, the person is aware that the fear is unreasonable, yet is unable to overcome it. (Goldberg)

This type of Anxiety Disorder has a direct correlation relating to social situations. A person experiencing this disorder has a chronic fear of other people’s perceptions of them. They are especially likely to avoid any situation where they are being observed by others such as giving presentations or activities that must be performed in front of an audience, large or small. In extreme circumstances where social anxiety disorder exists, a person will avoid social situations all together and will become a “hermit” in their own individual abode. This disorder is impairing to one’s normal life functioning because it often affects a person’s ability to perform the essential duties in a work environment. It also deters them from engaging in typical conversations because the fear of being embarrassed or judged is so extreme (Fleming, 2012).

What is Anxiety? As defined by Understanding Psychology by Glencoe, Anxiety is a general state of dread or uneasiness that a person feels in response to a real or imagined danger. Anxiety affects 19 million Americans annually and anxiety disorder happens to be the most common mental illness in America. There are many different types of anxiety disorder such as: Panic Disorder, Obsessive – Compulsion Disorder, Phobias, and a few more. Although there is no cure for anxiety disorders, there are treatments to reduce symptoms.

Fear is a feeling created in a response to a perceived danger. Fear can produce pleasure, heighten awareness, be in the form of phobia, a fear of the unknown and an instinctual response to danger.

Anxiety treatment could most accurately be described as having a tool belt with lots of different options to take given the situation. Breathing exercises are a great way to increase the amount of chemicals in your brain that tells itself to calm down. By taking a few deep breaths before doing something that you are nerves about, you will find that a lot of the pressure to take action will have lifted off of your shoulders. It’s much easier at that point to take action because you feel less constrained by your fear.

According to my dictionary, Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. When the word "fear" comes to my mind, I think of an emotion that's caused by a bad situation. There are many things in this world that put fear in me. My greatest fears are computer viruses, thugs, sick people, and clowns. Each of these fears make me very scared and give me goosebumps.