Anxiety explained
Fig. 1Two routes to the alarm
- The signal arrives and splits. Everything reaching the brain passes through this junction first.
- The alarm. It can start a full fear response on its own, before anything has been identified.
- The thinking brain, which takes the longer road — it works out what the signal actually was.
- The body responds to whichever arrives first. Usually that is the short route, which is why the reaction beats the explanation.
Anxiety disorders respond well to treatment.
They are well understood and there is a whole range of different techniques you can use to overcome any anxiety problems. The table below is very basic but it will give you an idea as to where you should direct your efforts to get the appropriate help that you may need.
Fear is essential to human survival. Anxiety attacks and other forms of anxiety are behaviors that have developed from inappropriate fear of particular situations. These reactions then become generalized and can be triggered at the wrong times.
Fear memories are learned faster and retained longer than other types of emotional memory. This is important. Learning to respond rapidly to danger makes sure that you do the right thing in event that the same thing happens again. It is an automatic behavior that is learnt very quickly and is essential to basic survival. It is this rapid learning that leaves us vulnerable to the development of anxiety
Research has shown that genes can be a factor in anxiety. Some people have a genetic predisposition which is then often triggered by some stressful life event. This event appears to change how the brain deals with fear.
Anxiety is among the most common mental health problems, affecting a large number of people every year.
Types of Anxiety Disorder
- Panic Disorder
- Agoraphobia
- Social Phobia
- Specific Phobia
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
- Limited Symptom Attacks (LSA)
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
The Five Basic Ground Rules Before You Begin Treatment
The first step in getting well is to stop thinking you’re sick, to stop feeding your fears.
Stop talking about it. This includes friends, family and unnecessary trips to your doctor or therapist.
Stop reading about it and researching it. Many of the long term anxiety sufferers that I see at one of the clinics have read everything there is to read on the subject, they are experts in their field. The net result is nothing. They are still in the same state of anxiety and in many cases getting worse. Constantly reminding yourself about your anxiety increases its importance in your mind and keeps the whole cycle repeating over and over.
Stop thinking about the past problem. Again, you are reminding yourself of your condition and damaging your own confidence and self esteem.
Start focusing on the future and getting well.
Treatment For Anxiety Disorders
- Anxiety Hypnosis – cognitive behaviour techniques work very well under hypnosis.
- Distraction Therapy
- Dissociation Therapy
- Relaxation
- Exposure Therapy or Flooding – recreating the symptoms to familiarize yourself with them.
- Exercise Motivation
- Dietary changes
- Deliberate changes in daily habits and lifestyle.
- Self assessment skills training
- Social skills training
- Assertiveness and confidence building
- Relaxing Breathing Techniques
Anxiety is not a mental illness or a disability, it is a state of mind that can change a great deal with some straightforward changes in your daily life.
Causes of Anxiety
What I would like to say to you is that the cause of your anxiety is not part of the treatment. It helps that you understand how it happened because it is always good to have reasons; it is important to know that you are not mentally ill, but a victim of circumstances.
Having treated many anxiety sufferers I honestly believe that treating the cause rarely works, while treating the condition, as it is right now is generally more productive. You stop panic attacks with simple changes to the way you deal with them when they happen. You stop social phobias by building up some very straightforward patterns of thinking.
Agoraphobia
The more you stack all of these simple techniques the more they build up day by day, week by week. You can dismantle agoraphobia in the same way that it started; piece by piece. It is the combined effect of all the little changes that you make in the way you think and lead your life that can reduce anxiety a great deal.
Social Phobia
Many sufferers of social phobia can point to something that made their condition worse, often family, parents, bullying, an illness, perhaps just a lingering feeling of something too far back to remember.
General Anxiety & Worry
You keep yourself in a constant state of anxiety with the thoughts that you have. Learning to control your thoughts can prevent your mind endlessly going in circles. It really is very easy to do. You don’t have to be Buddhist to realise the wisdom in Buddha’s words
“You are what you think, Everything that you are, arises with your thoughts With your thoughts you make the world.”
Depression
Anyone living with anxiety long enough knows that you start to get depressed because it just seems to never end. Sure, some days are better than others, but there is that feeling that it is some downward spiral, with no way out. Then there are days where there is just some dark cloud hanging over you. Any improvement, however small brings hope. Depression will fade away as you introduce small, simple changes into your life and your hopes and expectations grow.
Obsessions
Have you ever been to a zoo and watched a tiger pacing relentlessly back and forwards? Obsessions grow out of frustration and despair. If you suffer from any type of anxiety then you are probably doing the same thing in your mind; continually going over and over the same thoughts and worries. If you are so caught up in the moment then you can begin to act these out and they can grow into uncontrolled movements, even whole rituals.
Over the years I have watched my friends do strange little movements in off guard moments. It seems that thoughts and fantasies leak out into some physical action in nearly everyone. All you are doing is magnifying a normal tendancy into something out of all proportion.
You can learn to control your thoughts and then you will find that your body will follow.
If you wanted to build physical strength you would exercise your muscles. Trying to stop obsessive behavior with mental force only builds it up. Relaxing and letting your mind become calm, then learning to focus your thoughts will starve the roots of obsessive behavior.
Compulsions
Everyone has some strange and bizarre thoughts from time to time, but mostly these thoughts are instantly dismissed. But imagine (perhaps you don’t have to) that a particular thought is so disturbing that you can’t help asking yourself where it came from, why did you have that thought. By the very act of worrying about it you pull that thought back into your mind over and over again.
The real danger is that you examine it, perhaps even horrify yourself and you start to think that there is something wrong with you. Of course there is NOTHING wrong with you. All you did was to be over sensitive and start of examining something too closely and then blaming yourself.
Some anxiety symptoms are born out of healthy ways of thinking and behaving that become magnified out of all proportion. It is time to shrink them down to the insignificant things they really are.
Don’t blame yourself. Don’t blame anyone. Just concentrate on getting well.