Archive for the ‘Anxiety’ Category

Applicable methods to treat Anxiety

Posted by Health articles on September 2nd, 2009

It is never a pleasant experience to be in stress all the time and so, you need to learn how to treat anxiety in order to cope with your life. You can bring in the normal state of your life by learning some applicable methods and make them work for you. The first step in this venture is to accept that you are in a state where you needed all the help and support you can get. Acceptance will always be the first step at everything.

Medication or Natural

When you want to know how to treat anxiety, you are given two major options namely – medication or natural. Medications are ones that can make you overly dependent that sometimes it gives you the risk of making things worse not to mention the side effects you can get. Natural therapies on the other hand branches out to different options you could take in order for you to deal with your condition. Sometimes this kind of therapy is the best option you can get.

Branching Out Natural Methods

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or CBT is one great way to deal with this condition effectively. It allows you to personally face your problem and what triggers it with the help of a professional or medical practitioner. It will help you point out the stimuli that bring about an attack and make you realize that none of your fearsome thoughts are real.

Relaxation Techniques is another option for people who suffer from this condition. It can easily be done anywhere and anytime. You can do this alone or with the help of your support system whichever is comfortable and convenient for you. All you need is a strong will to calm your system down.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy images
Always remember that the best way to learn how to treat anxiety lies in your fighting abilities. It doesn’t do much if you rely on medications too much. What medications can do is to make you dependent and the effect is only temporary. The solution you needed is to eradicate the condition entirely.
How to Stop Panic Attacks – Anxiety treatment

Anxiety Panic Disorder

Posted by Health articles on July 23rd, 2009

A panic attack is characterized by the occurence of severe and unexpected periods of very intense symptoms such as accelerated heart beat, intense perspiration, limb shaking, confusion, terror, the feeling of death imminence or craziness, sensory alertness, pupil dilation, choking the impulse to run or scream and so on. If the cause of the panic attack is not in a life-threatening situation or in a specific medical ailment, then, the diagnosis might be anxiety panic disorder. Usually, before turning into anxiety panic disorder, any panic attack could be accidental and unique of its kind.

Usually, a panic attack reaches its maximum intensity within a a couple of minutes and then stabilizes to a state of normality over the next half an hour or next several hours. The specificity of an anxiety panic disorder relates to the frequency of the attacks, usually of an uneven intensity. Thus, one gets to suffer from several such anxiety bouts every month, which is enough to feel terrorized and threatened permanentlyall the time, thus worsening the condition and deepening the fear.
The Symptoms of Anxiety Attacks
Most patients of anxiety panic attack disorder are women between twenty and thirty. The problem is less common in younger or older age groups; plus it is usually associated with a separation trauma experienced by the person some time during childhood. The beginning of an anxiety panic disorder may be gradual or abrupt, meaning that you can start experiencing symptoms prior to the full anxiety bout, or the panic may strike you out of the blue.

In certain instances an anxiety panic disorder is so very difficult to diagnose because of the inconclusive medical evaluations. Lots of people thus spend weeks, months or years going from specialist to specialist, receiving all sorts of advice and treatment options. Unless correct evaluation and diagnosis is made, the patient could go through an unnecessary experience. On the other hand, many diagnosed patients begin avoiding certain situations for fear of developing an anxiety episode.
Anxiety management
Some of the situations or locations that sufferers from anxiety panic disorder avoid include social reunions, classes, gatherings or church services, shopping malls, restaurants, airplanes, elevators and so on. If not treated right, an anxiety panic disorder may radically alter a patient’s life spoiling routine activities, causing depression and many other problems. In addition, the cases of self-medication, alcohol abuse and suicide are also related to the challlenge of coping with anxiety and its symptoms.

In a moment we will see how the anxiety and stress symptoms are very similar. This is very evident if we look at anxiety physical symptoms and look at the same category of symptoms in stress.

Stress is seen by many as one of the causes of anxiety. Although we did note read this statement during our research, but I guess we will be safe if we said that among the most common anxiety causes is stress.

Therefore, we if we are able decipher the stress code through understanding its signs and symptoms we might be able to control anxiety or even prevent it. The logic goes as follows:

If we are living a stressful situation without knowing that it is stressing us, which is very normal and common as stress can creep into our lives without us noticing, the stress signs and symptoms can give us an early warning before it develops and later cause anxiety.

If we are able to notice the stress symptoms, then we will have the chance to work on controlling them and overcoming them. When we succeed doing that then we would prevent it from developing anxiety.

If we already suffer from anxiety, then – as some practitioners actually suggest – we can try and work on the stress symptoms which will significantly reduce anxiety.
Learn more about anxiety disorders
Now let us look at the Stress symptoms first. Those symptoms have been divided into four groups as follows:

Anxiety symptoms

1- Cognitive Symptoms

- Memory problems
- Inability to concentrate
- Poor Judgment
- Seeing only the negative
- Anxious or racing thoughts
- Constant Worrying

2- Emotional Symptoms

- Moodiness
- Irritability or short temper
- Agitation, inability to relax
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Sense of loneliness and isolation
- Depression or general unhappiness

3- Physical Symptoms

- Aches and pains
- Diarrhea or constipation
- Nausea and/or dizziness
- Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
- Loss of sex drive
- Frequent colds

4- Behavioral Symptoms

- Eating more or less than usual
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Isolation from others
- Procrastination or neglecting responsibilities
- Using alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs to relax
- Nervous habits (e.g. nail biting, pacing)

Now let us take a look at anxiety physical symptoms:

- Palpitations – Heart Beating Hard and/or Fast or Pounding
- Sweating – Perspiration
- Trembling or Shaking
- Shortness of Breath – Breathlessness – Difficulty Breathing
- Difficulty Swallowing
- Sharp Pains in the Chest or Chest Discomfort
- Abdominal Pain – Stomach Pain
- Nausea and Vomiting
- Dizziness – Lightheadedness – Faintness
- Hot or Cold Flashes

We will list here now just the stress physical symptoms for a comparison:

- Aches and pains
- Diarrhea or constipation
- Nausea and/or dizziness
- Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
- Loss of sex drive
- Frequent colds

Anxiety management

Posted by Health articles on May 20th, 2009

Everyone struggles with a worry or fear over something at some point in their life. But when the worrying becomes excessive and the fears are over trivial events or situations, the effects on a person’s mental state can be detrimental and disabling.

No one enjoys the feelings that accompany anxiety – irritability, difficulty concentrating, restlessness, sweating, muscle tension, and trembling. The effects of anxiety such as these are common and typically linked to stresses about work, school, social activities, finances, family, and relationships, and can generally be treated with help from a mental health professional or, in some cases, self-help therapy.

While more severe forms of anxiety can be treated with calming drugs such as Xanax and Valium which leave the patient feeling calm and relaxed, many individuals affected by anxiety have opted for a more natural route when alleviating the stress and tension in their lives. There are a variety of ways one can manage anxiety without medication or professional assistance, including the following:

1) Make a list of specific things that trigger your anxiety. For example: running late to work or school, not having enough money to pay the bills, or being unprepared for a project or task. Once you learn to recognize the patterns that lead to unproductive worrying, you can develop a plan to address them.

2) Practice meditation or other forms of relaxation to calm your stressed and worried mind. Devote 15 to 30 minutes a day to calming techniques and refuse to focus on your worries for the duration of your session. Try a soothing music CD or putting your worries and frustrations on paper in a private journal.

3) Get out and get active. Exercise is a great treatment for excessive worrying and anxiety. Walk or run out your feelings of edginess or restlessness. Lift your spirits by dancing to an upbeat song. Get together with a friend for some tennis or a bike ride. Fresh air and physical activity are excellent self-treatments for anxiety in your everyday life.

How to Stop Panic Attacks

Posted by Health articles on April 27th, 2009

If you or someone you care about has suffered panic attack symptoms and panic disorder cycle then you know how very frightening this can be. You could be just going about your everyday life events when suddenly you begin to feel the symptoms of a panic attack. The anxiety you feel begins to feed the panic disorder cycle. What happens next is that your body is going to have an anxiety reaction and that will increases the physical symptoms until you’re engulfed in a panic attack. The more you feel the symptoms the stronger the panic attack becomes.
Answers to Questions About Panic Disorder
What’s happening to you now is that the panic disorder cycle is feeding on itself and the symptoms you feel just become stronger. At this point your goal is to stop the panic attack in its tracks using one of several techniques. If you don’t stop it now you’re going to have a full-blown panic attack.

One of the ways to stop it for some people can be as simple as just taking a deep breath, hold it and then slowly letting it go. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work for everyone and it doesn’t work every time.

Dealing with panic disorder cycle in this way is just a temporary fix. These temporary solutions may reduce your symptoms of a panic attack, they may even stop it in the short term but in the long run they probably won’t prevent the next panic attack.

Your questions is, “What can I do to stop this?” One of the most important things you can do is to identify your triggers. These are the things that start the panic disorder cycle. Knowing what you’re thinking and how you’re feeling just before a panic attack begins is extremely important.

A critical piece of this is identifying your fears. It cannot be stressed enough that for you to break the panic disorder cycle you must know what you’re afraid of. Identifying those fears is going to help you to understand what triggers the symptoms of panic attack for you.

One of the more common triggers is worrying about the future, and what might happen. Worrying about future events is something that many people report begins to trigger panic attack symptoms. One of the things you can do is to look at those triggers, think about what you’re afraid of and write down what you know to be true.

By writing these things down you can begin to ask yourself to face whatever it is you’re afraid of. There are several other techniques and actions you can take to reduce panic attack symptoms and to break the panic disorder cycle. One of the most important things you can do is to beware of those triggers.

One of the things that is absolutely critical is to understand is that most of the time the good things that we worry about happening in the future never really happen. This is a logical examination of your fear.
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The Symptoms of Anxiety Attacks

Posted by admin on March 12th, 2009

Before you look into the symptoms of anxiety attacks, you must first know it’s causes. You need to identify the triggers and this can only be done after a thorough checkup with a medical professional.

The real cause of anxiety attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder anxiety is still unknown. But, according to scientists and researchers, the attacks are primarily caused by physical illness, stressful situations, and the genetic makeup of the individual. Now that you know the possible causes of anxiety attacks, you can now increase your knowledge by uncovering the symptoms of anxiety panic attack.

Muscle tension and chest pain are two of the most common anxiety disorder symptoms. However, studies show that there are more than a hundred possible symptoms and it varies from one individual to another. Some anxiety disorder patients experience mild symptoms, but there are also those who suffer from severe symptoms. It all depends on the genetic makeup of the patient. So if you have a family history of the disorder, you need to be extra careful because you’re a likely candidate.

The symptoms of the attacks are usually divided into different categories so that medical professionals can give accurate diagnosis. The categories include body, chest, emotions or mood, fears, head, mind, mouth and stomach, skin, sleep, sight, and touch.

Body symptoms typically includes tension, stiffness, blanching, blushing, itchy or burning sensation, numbness, hyperactivity, general malaise, increased/decreased sexual drive, and shaking. Chest pains are common that is often mistaken for a heart attack because of increased heart palpitation. Mood swings are notable. Because of the fear for another attack, the patient can go insane or can lose control of his or her emotions. Some patients also tend to vomit, suffer from diarrhea, constipation, and dry mouth. Allergic reactions and skin rashes are quite common among patients as well as disturbed sleep. Blurred vision and eye sensitivity are not common symptoms of anxiety attacks although it also happens in rare cases.

There is no need to worry because by consulting a medical professional, you can receive the appropriate anxiety panic attack treatment. There are several treatments available like cognitive behavioral therapy, serotonin, and many other treatments. Keep in mind that you should not take any medication without the doctor’s advice because the disorder can get worse.

By knowing the symptoms of anxiety attacks, you will know the best time to visit your doctor.