Anxiety is an unpleasant feeling associated with apprehensive thoughts and physical symptoms (such as palpitations, tremors, sweating, difficulty in breathing etc), which leads to a person feeling tensed and unable to relax.
Anxiety is a normal reaction to any stressful situation and prepares our body to cope with it. During anxiety, our body releases stress hormones (e.g. adrenaline) and burst of signals from brain to other body systems which helps to mount the “fight or flight” response.
Anxiety becomes abnormal only if it interferes with our functioning, or it is out of proportion to the stressful situation, or it doesn’t go away after the situation has passed, or it appears without any stressful situation.
Anxiety Disorders
They are conditions in which primary symptom is anxiety, which interferes in normal day-to-day functioning. Each of these conditions is associated with their unique characteristics and a person may suffer from more than one kind of anxiety disorder. Apart from these, anxiety can be a prominent symptom in other mental health disorders, like depression, schizophrenia etc.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
It is diagnosed when anxiety is present for most time than not, for a long duration (around 6 months) although, severity of anxiety may fluctuate over time. Person may be stressed over various issues, may worry a lot regarding work or home or otherwise minor issues. Person is restless or “on the edge” a lot of time and has difficulty in concentrating. There is poor quality of sleep, feeling of tiredness or tensed up muscles and having irritable mood.
Phobia
It refers to an out-of-proportion fear about a particular thing or situation. Exposure (or sometimes even the thought of exposure) to the phobic situation produces intense anxiety, which therefore, results in avoidance of the particular situation or thing and this subsequently, adversely affects the concerned person.
Social Phobia (or Social Anxiety Disorder)
Persons with social phobia get anxious about what others will think about them and fear that they will be humiliated or judged by others. They tend to avoid meeting strangers or meet other people in groups to avoid possible embarrassment. When unable to avoid, such persons get very anxious and may shake or sweat profusely in such a situation.
Agoraphobia
It refers to fear of being in such a situation from which either escape to a safer place is difficult or where help will not be available. Such situations can be being in shops, cinemas, train, bus, plane or crowded places, etc. Whenever exposed to such situations, there is intense anxiety and the person tries to get out of it. There may be total avoidance of such places and a person may become homebound.
Specific phobias
Persons may have intense anxiety on being exposed to certain things, like height, blood, closed spaces (like lift) or certain animals, etc.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
This consists of having obsessions, i.e., involuntary repeated thoughts, impulses or images which are considered by the person as senseless and causes discomfort to the person. Common examples are fear of contracting germs, dirt, contamination, violence, harm etc. Compulsions (or voluntary behaviour) are done to reduce the discomfort of obsessions. They may be able to reduce anxiety transiently, but result in excessive behaviours which, over time, tend to increase, rather than decrease the severity of problem. Common examples are repeated washing, checking, touching, counting, cleaning etc.
Panic disorder
Panic attack refers to episode of intense anxiety, which occurs suddenly, without any apparent reason and person may feel like he/she is going to die. There may be “air hunger” and cause person to run out in the open for fresh air. Associated palpitations, chest pain, tremors and sweating are quite distressing and the whole episode becomes a frightening experience. A typical episode usually lasts less than half an hour, but some anxiety may persist for 2-3 hours. Person may get multiple evaluations for possible heart conditions, which do not reveal any cardiac abnormality. When such panic attacks occur frequently, only then panic disorder is diagnosed.
Anxiety Treatment
Normal anxiety does not need treatment. Only when anxiety is abnormal, treatment is warranted. Treatment depends on the specific condition and is tailored specifically for each individual. Broadly, it consists of non-medication and medication methods.Dr Prannay Gulati provides best anxiety treatment in mohali and adjoining areas such as chandigarh,panchkula.
Non-medication methods:
Psycho-education – Giving correct knowledge and understanding is the first step in management as it clears the doubts of patients and their caregivers.
Counselling/ Psychotherapy – Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Behaviour Therapy (BT), Anxiety management courses help to alleviate anxiety.
Medication:
Anti-depressants (like SSRIs), benzodiazepines (like clonazepam, diazepam), buspirone, beta blockers (like propranolol) are some of the commonly used medicines for anxiety treatment.
Anxiety Treatment may not lead to improvement in symptoms straight away and may require few days to start having any beneficial effect. It is advised to continue treatment even after apparent recovery from the anxiety disorder to prevent relapse. Patients must follow advice of their respective doctors.