Anxiety Disorder

One of the underlying causes of anxiety disorder is low self-esteem. Self-esteem is how you feel and think about yourself as opposed to how you view others. Self-esteem is the perception you have of yourself and your abilities. It’s unfortunate that many people don’t understand their true value as a human being and their real potential or capabilities. In a nutshell, anxiety and fear holds them back from appreciating themselves.

Unrelenting anxiety can cause damage in so many ways. It can stop you from attempting things you want to try. It can make you feel as is life holds promise for others but not you. Anxiety can make you fearful to take advantage of your talents. It can also cause you to have mistaken beliefs about the world and interpersonal relationships.

One of the treatments for anxiety disorder focuses on improving self-esteem and correcting mistaken beliefs that create worry and distress on an ongoing basis. This is a form of cognitive therapy that helps a person learn how to change their thoughts and view of themselves. It’s about changing attitudes. Believing you can fulfill your personal dreams may sound a bit trite on the surface, but it’s essential for a normal and healthy psyche.

Anxiety disorder can be treated through a self-help program that teaches you how to change your attitude about your capabilities for achievement. When you view the world as something that serves to prevent you from succeeding, then that’s precisely what it will do. If you view the world as a place that enables you to fulfill your dreams and display your capabilities, then the possibilities are endless.

Enhancing self-esteem is a common technique used to treat anxiety disorder because much anxiety comes from worrying about non-existent problems. It’s called the “what-if” syndrome. You can worry about what will happen if you attempt to meet new people, change jobs or become assertive. Or you can have faith in your ability to cope with change and other people’s reactions. It’s easy to see there is much more peace in life when you have confidence in your coping abilities.

Techniques to deal with anxiety disorder through self-esteem building include the following.

• Learn positive self-talk
• Learn to make decisions to the best of your ability
• Learn that you don’t always have to please others before yourself
• Learn you are never powerless
• Learn to make decisions that take your own well-being into account
• Learn you have abilities and talents
• Learn how to express your feelings and needs

In other words, you learn how to reduce or eliminate all the unnecessary worries in your life leading to anxiety disorder. Though this treatment may seem a bit vague to some people, the truth is that many anxiety disorders exist because of lack of self-esteem. Medication cannot restore self-esteem, but other behavioral and cognitive therapies are able to help you discover your self worth.

How Anxiety Affects the Body

Anxiety Disorders Come In Many Forms

Anxiety disorders are gaining a lot of attention as of late as American public service campaigns call on friends to stick close to their acquaintances with mental illness. The commercials that air on national television touch on the isolating patterns that often develop with anxiety disorders and urge people to seek help for and maintain a level of support for the person suffering.

But, just how prevalent are anxiety disorders in the U.S. and what forms can they take on? According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, this collective condition affects some 40 million Americans. With a number of different forms, anxiety disorder can range from rather generalized presentations to very precise fears and phobias.

The different anxiety disorders are:

Generalized - Affecting some 6.8 million Americans age 18 or older, this form of the condition is characterized by paralyzing worry over everyday things. People with this condition can find themselves blocked off from life by fears that grow from justified to irrational. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, people might actually think they are dying while in the midst of a panic attack.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - With some 2.2 million Americans impacted by this form of the condition, it is the least prevalent of the disorders. This condition is characterized by a compulsion to perform repetitive acts in almost a ritualistic manner. Hand washing or wringing is a common behavior in this condition.

Panic Disorder - This form of the condition involves fears of panic attacks themselves. It strikes some 6 million people and can be rather debilitating. Since panic attacks mimic heart attacks and other serious conditions, people quite often literally believe they are dying while in their throes. In some cases, anything that has triggered a panic attack in the past will be avoided at all costs. For example, driving, eating out in public and other routine things.

Posttraumatic Stress - This particular disorder is believed to impact about 7.7 million people. It is brought on by extreme trauma, such as rape, abuse or witnessing a violent act.

Social Anxiety - With 15 million people suffering from this form of anxiety, the condition is considered quite severe. In fact, this is the form of anxiety targeted by the public service campaigns on American television. In its worst form, people with this condition avoid public situations at virtually all costs.

Phobias - An irrational fear of heights, spiders, snakes and other such things can cause a person to suffer from severe anxiety. This condition strikes an estimated 19 million people and covers a host of different phobias.

Anxiety disorder are more common than many people realize. When the symptoms are strong and they sideline a person from everyday activities, help should be sought. Medical doctors, psychologists and other therapists can assist patients in a variety of ways.

Depression and Anxiety

Millions of people throughout the world are suffering from depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety has thus become a serious mental disorder. According to research both these disorders coexist with each other and in rare cases they are different from each other. It has been discovered that almost 70% of people suffering from clinical depression are also prone to anxiety. This is indeed a serious phenomenon that requires urgent attention. Similarly people who have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder are also suffering from depression simultaneously. In fact depression and anxiety overlap each other so frequently that it forces psychologists to consider both these disorders as facets of the same illness.

It’s natural that people become sad or harbor sad feelings at some point in their lives. There can be many factors contributing to this feeling like retrenchment, loss of a loved one, shattered aspirations or other failures. All these factors may cause a person to experience symptoms of depression. In the same way when people experience stressful situations continuously in their lives they suffer from anxiety and prolonged exposure to such situations leads to a serious disorder. Up to a point it is normal to experience such feelings but you never know when it might snap you into two.
If you are feeling a kind of uncontrollable sadness or utter hopelessness, excessive tiredness, loss of appetite and sleep and the same is bugging you for more than a few weeks, you must realize then that you are suffering from clinical depression. Similarly if your feelings of anxiety outweigh the stresses that you are currently experiencing, or you are experiencing panic attacks frequently then you may be suffering from an anxiety disorder. In most cases anxiety and depression are experienced together and in such cases treatment for both these disorders cannot be provided simultaneously but one at a time.

As explained, in many cases depression and anxiety may overlap each other as such treatment for these two disorders is also given based on this fact. People with anxiety disorders are usually treated with antidepressant medications. For treating both depression and anxiety psychologists apply different types of psychotherapy (cognitive and behavioral therapy) which have resulted in healthy recovery for patients. However sometimes depression is treated first depending on cases. To help patients cope with anxiety, a form of therapy known as exposure therapy (patients are exposed to gradually increasing stress factors) is applied. Sometimes it may me necessary to treat depression first if a person is suffering from both depression and anxiety as depression can sap his/her energy leaving them unable to cooperate. If it is not done so then anxiety therapy would not be effective on that person.

Usually anxiety attacks a person at an early age particularly during childhood or adolescence whereas depression sets in during the later years. In such a case it would be better to treat anxiety so as to prevent depression from developing in adulthood. Depression and anxiety are in fact are ‘in the same boat brother’.