Anxiety disorder is a relative term that covers pathological and abnormal fears. It is often combined with mental health disorders. Anxiety disorders make you feel anxious most of the times without any apparent reason affecting your daily routine and disrupting your life. Being anxious can be so uncomfortable at times that the occasional bouts of anxiety can immobilize you and terrify you.

What are the causes of anxiety disorder?

Anxiety disorders are often related to mental health and factors like family history, abnormal brain functioning and environmental stresses. It often hits in childhood, adolescence but can begin in adulthood too.

Genetic Factors - Anxiety disorder is associated with family history and can be passed on in families due to the genetic factor.

Environmental stress – like trauma, unemployment sudden death and tragic event divorce or sudden withdrawal from addictive substances like alcohol and drugs can lead to anxiety.

Brain chemistry -The abnormal levels of neurotransmitters in the brain are associated with anxiety disorders. The abnormal levels alter the way the brain should react in specific situation thus leading to anxiety.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Panic disorder relates to a sudden fear of strike or attack any minute. People with this type of anxiety can predict when attack will occur or develop intense worries between the episodes, worrying when the next one will occur. Panic attacks are related to mental health of the person involving behavioral changes, persistent worrying, loosing control, and crazy attitude.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder relates to persistent unwanted negative thoughts and compulsive behavior difficult to stop and control

Post Traumatic stress disorder occurs after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic death, event, assault, molestation, crashes nightmares or human caused disasters. Family members of the victim can also get affected by this type of anxiety.

Phobia is characterized into two types.

Social phobia where the people have an overwhelming fear being scrutinized, embarrassed and humiliated in social activities leading to the potentially avoidance of such activities. Specific phobia is where people have irrational fear of a specified object and situation. There is a great deal of anxiety when exposed to the object or situation.

Symptoms of anxiety disorder

The most common mental health disorder is anxiety disorder. Though anxiety disorder relates to what the person thinks it has physical symptoms.

• Excessive ongoing worry or fear
• Restlessness
• Muscle tension
• Insomnia
• Nausea
• Sweating and palpitations
• Irritability
• Unrealistic view of problems
• Tiredness
• Difficult in concentrating

The anxiety, the worry can cause significant clinical distress or impairment in social, occupational and other important areas of functioning.

What is the diagnosis of anxiety disorders?

There are no laboratory tests to diagnose anxiety disorders. However, it can be evaluated after a period of six months. Based upon the intensity and duration of the symptoms of physical illness the doctor identifies the degree of dysfunction of the specific anxiety disorder. However, the symptoms should interfere with your everyday routine like missing school, neglecting meals etc.

What is the treatment of anxiety disorder?

The treatment for anxiety disorders is based on psychiatric treatments and medication. However therapies can help you combat anxiety disorders under the guidance of a therapist and promote good mental health. Therapies uncover the causes of anxiety and replace with the more positive thoughts, expose you to fears and situations to overcome them. Though they take a long time, they prove to be helpful.

Tips to overcome anxiety:

• Understand the problem of anxiety
• Decrease your vulnerability by cultivating connections with people. Join social groups and enhance friend circle, which will give you less time for loneliness and isolation.
• Adopt a healthy lifestyle by involving yourself in physical activity. This reduces stress and tension. Avoid alcohol, drugs, caffeine, and nicotine.
• Take time to enjoy and relax. Do not burden yourself with responsibilities. Avid people who provoke you to towards anxiety.

Anxiety affects mental health, sapping all your emotional and physical energy Recognizing your worries and fears and adopting a positive perspective and emotional balance plays a vital role in combating anxiety.

All about Anxiety Disorders is a post from: Mental Health