Anxiety

Anxiety 

In everyday life almost everybody gets anxious or feels nervous before a test, or an important business meeting. It is normal to experience anxiety when faced with any stress or threatening situation, but it becomes abnormal to feel strong, chronic anxiety in the absence of a visible cause. There is a growing evidence of most of the people suffering from anxiety disorders are overly sensitive to threat cues, they exhibit a heightened sensitivity, vigilance or readiness to attend to potential threats.

When anxiety occurs in inappropriate times, occurs frequently,  or is so intense and long-lasting that it interferes with a person's normal activities, it is considered a disorder.

The term 'anxiety' is mainly defined as vague, diffuse and a very unpleasant feeling of fear and apprehension. The individual shows combinations of the symptoms like rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, fainting, dizziness, sweating, sleeplessness, frequent urination and tremor. People who feel anxious are not aware of the reasons for their fear. Thus even though fear and anxiety involve similar reactions, the cause of worry is readily apparent.

Fear and stress reactions are essential for human survival. They enable people to pursue important goals and to respond appropriately to danger. In a healthy individual, the stress response is provoked by a genuine threat or challenge and is used as a spur for appropriate action. An anxiety disorder, however, involves an excessive or inappropriate state of arousal characterised by feeling of apprehension, uncertainty, or fear.

The word 'anxiety' is derived from the Latin 'angere', which means to choke or strangle. The anxiety response  is often not triggered by a real threat. Nevertheless it can still paralyze the individual into inaction or withdrawal. An anxiety disorder persists, while an appropriate response to a threat resolves, once the threat is removed. Anxiety disorder involve a state of distressing chronic but fluctuating nervousness that is inappropriately severe for the person's circumstances.

Drugs, psychotherapy,  or both can substantially help most people with anxiety disorder.

● Common Symptoms of Anxiety Disorder :-

• Nervousness
• Vigilance
• Sleeplessness
• Breathlessness 
• Feeling faint
• Lack of concentration
• Worry or apprehension 
• Trembling
• Sweating
• Feeling tired
• Frequency of urination
• Palpitation almost pounding of heart
• Muscle tension
• Headaches 
• Insomnia
• Restlessness
• Irritability
• Hot flashes or chills
• Hyperventilation
• Nausea or stomach cramps etc.

● CATEGORY OF ANXIETY DISORDERS ●

According to standard manual for mental health clinicians, DSM IV -TR categorises anxiety disorders under the following headings :

☆ Generalised Anxiety Disorders: This consists of more prolonged, vague, unexplained but intense fears that not seem to be attached to any particular object. It resembles normal fears but no actual danger is present in most of the cases.

♧ Symptoms of Generalised Anxiety Disorders:

• Motor tension 
• Apprehensive feelings about the future
• Automatic reactivity
• Hyper vigilance

☆ Panic Disorder (Panic Attack) : Panic disorders may come about with no warning signs. The indicators are mostly similar to generalised anxiety disorders except they are magnified and usually have a sudden onset. The victims fear that they will die, or go crazy or do something uncontrolled and they report a variety of unusual psycho sensory symptoms. This disorder affect women more than men and younger age groups more than the elderly. Compared to other anxiety disorders panic attacks appear to the more distressing and sometimes severe panic states are followed by periods of psychotic disorganisation in which there is a reduced capacity to test reality.

♧ Symptoms of Panic Attacks :

• Dizziness, unsteadiness or faintness
• Trembling, shaking or sweating
• Heart palpitations or high heart rate
• Chest pain or discomfort
• Numbness or tingling
• Fear of death or losing control

☆ Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) : Obsessions are recurring thoughts, impulses or images that the person tries to eliminate or resist but either cannot or has extreme difficulty in doing so. The person does not have the control on their obsessions which leads to increase anxiety and to the method generally used to try to control the obsessions. People usually involve in doubt, hesitation, fear of contamination, or fear of ones own aggression. Compulsions are thought or action that provide relief are generally used to suppress the obsession. The compulsions are not connected realistically with the obsessions they are excessive in their nature. The victim of OCD tend to be secretive about their pre occupations and frequently are able to work effectively in spite of their problems.

♧ Symptoms of OCD :

• Obsessiveness to check the door locks
• Obsessive of sexual thoughts
• Obsession of counting
• Washing the hands continuously
• Lots of doubts
• Brushing the teeth continuously under compulsion.

☆ Phobias : Phobia is an intense irrational and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things etc. People with this disorder know exactly for what they are afraid of, except for their fears of specific objects, phobic situations, individuals etc. Physically there does not seem to be anything wrong with them, but their fears are out of proportion with reality seem to be inexplicable and are beyond their voluntary control. One study on phobic patients showed that their fears gell into five categories, viz., (i) separation (ii) animals (iii) bodily mutilation  (iv) social situation and (v) nature.

Classification of Phobias :  Phobias are many and are classified according to the feared object. Those are presented below ---

1. Agora phobia: Fear of open places.
2. Claustro phobia: Fear of closed places.
3. Xeno phobia: Fear of strangers.
4. Ochlo phobia: Fear of crowd.
5. Hemo phobia: Fear of blood.
6. Somni phobia: Fear of sleep.
7. Phasmo phobia: Fear of ghosts.
8. Myso phobia: Fear of dirt.
9. Algophobia: Fear of pain.
10. Andro phobia: Fear of men.
11. Aqua phobia: Fear of water.
12. Hydro phobia: Fear of water.
13. Arachno phobia: Fear of spiders.
14. Social phobia: Fear and embarrassment in dealing with others.

♧ Symptoms of Phobia :

• Intense and disabling fear, panic and anxiety
• Fear become too much excessive and unreasonable
• Avoiding certain places and situation for fear
• Avoidance becomes prominent and affects the normal life
• Obsessive thinking
• Feeling from the situation
• Persistent worry
• Shaking and Palpitation

☆ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder : This is a disorder that develops after a person experiences a traumatic or terrifying event, for example, physical or sexual assault, unexpected death of loved ones, natural disasters causing heavy damage and death and destruction, etc. Long time after the event had occurred the person mentally remains occupied along with the same feelings of anxiety that the original event had produced.

♧ Symptoms of PTSD:

• Anger and irritability
• Flashbacks
• Feeling of intense distress
• Depression and hopelessness
• Feeling jumpy and easily started
• Rapid breathing nausea and muscle tension
• Suicidal thoughts
• Feelings of alienated
• Chest pain

☆ Acute Stress Disorder : It is a psychological condition arising in response to a terrifying or traumatic event. It is similar to post traumatic stress disorder but experienced immediately after the traumatic event. 

♧ Symptoms of ASD :

• Numbness
• Detachment
• Derealisation 
• Depersonalisation
• Dissociative amnesia
• Flashbacks
• Avoidance of any stimulation

____________________