What are the symptoms and treatments of anxiety and anxiety attacks?
Anxiety Disorder: Anxiety is an emotion characterized by an unpleasant state of manner, it is a feeling of uneasiness and worry, and it is a fear characterized by a behavioral disturbance. Anxiety is a very natural response to the stress. Feelings are sometimes associated with the event such as the first day at school, interview, first day at the job, or an event where you have to give a speech. But such emotional parameter if last longer than six month of the period you may have an anxiety disorder. This emotion interferes in your life and creates an imbalance in your day-to-day life. It makes it difficult to focus and work in life.
Statistics: The National Mental Health Survey conducted by the National Institute Mental Health and Neuro Science (NIMHANS) in 2015-2016 states that the total percentage of people suffering from an anxiety disorder is 3.6 % of the total population. This was the first nationwide survey taken on mental health from 29 states in India during 2015-2016 which gives us clarity regarding the rate of people suffering from an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorder is largely seen in women than in men, disorders such as phobia, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder. This may suffer from childhood to adulthood for a large period. According to a recent study, there are almost 273 million people in this world suffering from an anxiety disorder.
Symptoms of Anxiety Disorder: Anxiety can feel different from person to person due to the experience people have in their life. This feeling can cause butterflies in your stomach or increase the rate of the heartbeat. Sometimes emotions are very hard to control. But some symptoms can help to find out whether someone has an anxiety disorder or not.
1: Suicidal Idealization: It is hard to believe but anxiety disorder does have an impact on suicidal thoughts. It is the continuous thoughts running through the mind which cause the feeling of loneliness and fatigue. Overthinking is one of the outcomes of irregular thoughts in the mind. This feeling is unpleasant and hard to control makes it difficult to focus on daily life.
2: Hyperventilation: The feeling of uneasiness while breathing causes difficulty to process the ventilation in the body. The tension created inside the body creates difficulty in the circulation of blood. It is hard to focus in day to day life activities.
3: Chest Pain: The worst part of the anxiety disorder is chest pain. It aches terribly in the chest. It makes it difficult to resolve the day-to-day activity. The most frightening thing is it may cause panic attacks during normal activities.
4: Headache: It is very common to have a headache during the anxiety. The head suddenly feels heaviness in the nervous systems ends up getting a minor or major headache.
5: Mood Swings: Mood swings might not be the symptom of anxiety but anxiety does have an effect on the mood. It changes drastically from minor to major mood swings. It is hard to control this unpleasant feeling. And it makes difficult to focus on day to day life activity.
6: Dizzy feeling: The range of sensations such as feeling faint, woozy, sleepiness, weak, and unsteady. Sudden loss of balance in daily activity. Makes it difficult to focus even on the simplest task.
Anxiety attacks: An anxiety attack is a fear that happens suddenly for a short period and for no reason, an anxiety attack is also known as a panic attack. It can be a one-time event or can become prolong the problem. If someone has two or more three anxiety attacks in a month then you may have panic or anxiety disorder. The main cause is being in a situation that is upsetting or unpleased circumstances. Sometimes few stressful life events such as the first interview, presentation, entrance exams, or sad events such as getting divorced. It is usually related to the events in life doesn’t matter sad or happy, the sudden change in emotions can be the reason for the panic attacks.
Some health-related conditions can also invite the anxiety attacks such as withdrawing from alcohol or drugs. It sounds cliché but some people have anxiety attacks that are triggered by the fear of having an anxiety attack. People become fearful of having anxiety attacks and sometimes they are afraid to leave their house, this fear is also called agoraphobia. Patients with agoraphobia have fear of being in crowds and they find it difficult to leave their comfort zone. Panic attacks often come without reason or warning.
How to deal with an Anxiety attack?
Experts say the use of aromatherapy whether they are in oil form, incense, or a candle, scents like lavender and sandalwood can be very soothing. They say aromatherapy is thought to help activate certain receptors in the brain and it eases anxiety. You can’t avoid the situations but you can control the emotions by breathing and meditating. It is a continuous practice that might be tedious but for the long term, it is the best therapy. Focusing on the situation and the reason behind it, remember when you face the events in life you grow stronger.
Try to deal with things one by one it might be hard in the beginning but it will increase your confidence. According to the counselors writing down what’s making you anxious gets it out of your head and makes it less daunting. It helps you to relax your thoughts and stops you from overthinking. This technique also helps in dealing with a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) when things become difficult. Whereas generalized anxiety disorder or GAD is a disorder where people worry uncontrollably about common occurrences and situations in life. GAD is different from normal feelings of anxiousness, it is very common to feel anxiety in daily life but a person with GAD may worry uncontrollably about their life.
Treatments for Anxiety Disorder:
Self-Treatment: One can have simple habits to improve their anxiety disorder, such as yoga, meditation, reading self-help books, playing games. Talking with someone close to you experts stated that verbal communication is also therapy. Having a healthy lifestyle can reduce the rate of anxiety. Writing a daily journal and expressing all fearful feelings in words allows us to control the uneasy feeling.
Medical Help: It is okay to take the help of a doctor, medications can also help in improving the anxiety conditions. CBT known as Cognitive Behavioral Treatment is only done by the psychiatrist through the series episode where the doctor discusses and opens up the stuck thoughts of a person.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: CBT is a psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorder, alcohol and drug use, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness. This treatment is considered to be the most effective to improve functionality and bring higher progress in your inner-self.
Anxiety Disorder is a normal resemblance of stress, but it may be severe in a longer period. But it is said prevention is better than cure. Treating your anxiety before it gets any worse is the best thing to do. There are many facilities available as well as treatments for this. There must not be any shame in accepting that someone has anxiety and as a part of society we must be acceptable mindsets that allows them to be free and be at ease.
Source:
https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cognitive-behavioral
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anxiety/symptoms-causes/syc-20350961