What You Should Know About Anxiety Disorders
Most people experience feelings of anxiety before an important event such as a big exam, business presentation, or first date. Anxiety disorders, however, are illnesses that fill people's lives with overwhelming anxiety and fear that are chronic, unremitting, and can grow progressively worse. Tormented by panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, flashbacks of traumatic events, nightmares, or countless frightening physical symptoms, some people with anxiety disorders even become housebound. Fortunately, through research supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), there are effective treatments that can help.
How Common Are Anxiety Disorders?
Anxiety disorders, as a group, are the most common mental illness in America . About 40 million American adults are affected by these debilitating illnesses each year. Children and adolescents can also develop anxiety disorders.
What Are the Different Kinds of Anxiety Disorders?
Panic Disorder —Repeated episodes of intense fear that strike often and without warning. Physical symptoms include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, abdominal distress, feelings of unreality, and fear of dying.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder —Repeated, unwanted thoughts or compulsive behaviors that seem impossible to stop or control.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder —Persistent symptoms that occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event such as rape or other criminal assault,
war, child abuse, natural or human-caused disasters, or crashes. Nightmares, flashbacks, numbing of emotions, depression, and feeling angry, irritable or distracted and being easily startled are common. Family members of victims can also develop this disorder.
Phobias —Two major types of phobias are social phobia and specific phobia. People with social phobia have an overwhelming and disabling fear of scrutiny, embarrassment, or humiliation in social situations, which leads to avoidance of many potentially pleasurable and meaningful activities. People with specific phobia experience extreme, disabling, and irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger; the fear leads to avoidance of objects or situations and can cause people to limit their lives unnecessarily.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder —Constant, exaggerated worrisome thoughts and tension about everyday routine life events and activities, lasting at least six months. Almost always anticipating the worst even though there is little reason to expect it; accompanied by physical symptoms, such as fatigue, trembling, muscle tension, headache, or nausea
Some Facts About Depression:
Depressive disorders are common: they affect an estimated 9.5 percent of adults living in America in a given year, or about 20.9 million people. Depressive disorders often begin between ages 15 and 30 but also can appear in children. Depression is the leading cause of disability among men and women of all ages in the U.S. and worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
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Stress and Depression are Real for Teens
Stress is characterized by feelings of tension, frustration, worry, sadness and withdrawal that commonly last from a few hours to a few days. So, when stress and depression become serious problems for teenagers, they often rely on passive or negative behaviors in their attempts to deal with problems. This creates a downward spiral for teens toward depression. Depression is both more severe and longer lasting. Depression is characterized by more extreme feelings of hopelessness, sadness, isolation, worry, withdrawal and worthlessness that last for two weeks or more.
Some causes for stress your teen might experience include break up with boy/girl friend, moving to another area, prolonged absence of a parent, increased arguments with parents, trouble with brother or sister, increased arguments between parents, change in parents' financial status, serious illness or injury of family member, and trouble with classmates.
The two most important areas of a teenager's life are home and school. These causes of stress are related to the issue of loss and might reflect the real or perceived loss of a friend or in the case of a move their usual environment and it can mean the loss of such intrinsic things as self-worth, respect, friendship or love. Many teens also experience conflict within relationships at home and at school. Not having the right skills to deal with conflict might further exasperate the problems teens experience.
Most teenagers tend to draw on family and friends for support to stressful events in their lives. They also distress by doing something relaxing, listening to music, trying to make their own decisions, daydreaming, trying to figure out solutions, keeping up friendships, trying positive and self-reliant problem-solving, watching television and being close to people they care about. These stress relieving behaviors are natural and appropriate for adolescents whose job in life is trying to become independent, taking on more responsibility for themselves, and drawing on friends and family for support.
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Effective Treatments for Anxiety Disorders
Treatments have been largely developed through research conducted by NIMH and other research institutions. They help many people with anxiety disorders and often combine medication and specific types of psychotherapy.
A number of medications that were originally approved for treating depression have been found to be effective for anxiety disorders as well. Some of the newest of these antidepressants are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Other antianxiety medications include groups of drugs called benzodiazepines and beta- blockers. If one medication is not effective, others can be tried. New medications are currently under development to treat anxiety symptoms.
Two clinically-proven effective forms of psychotherapy used to treat anxiety disorders are behavioral therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Behavioral therapy focuses on changing specific actions and uses several techniques to stop unwanted behaviors. In addition to the behavioral therapy techniques, cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches patients to understand and change their thinking patterns so they can react differently to the situations that cause them anxiety.
It is common for an anxiety disorder to accompany depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, or another anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders can also co-exist with illnesses such as cancer or heart disease. In such instances, the accompanying disorders will also need to be treated. Before beginning any treatment, however, it is important to have a thorough medical examination to rule out other possible causes of symptoms.
Fear and anxiety are a necessary part of life. Whether it's a feeling of anxiety before taking a test or a feeling of fear as you walk down a dark street, normal anxiety can be protective and stimulating. Unfortunately, more than 19 million Americans with anxiety disorders face much more than just "normal" anxiety. Instead, their lives are filled with overwhelming anxiety and fear that can be intense and crippling. Although anxiety disorders can be disabling, research supported and conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has provided insight into their causes and has resulted in many effective treatments
Ways to Reduce Stress in your Family
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Fall 2006: Vol. 1 Issue 2 
