Archive for June, 2010

Anxiety Attacks Symptoms

Anxiety attacks symptoms can make your heart pound and cause you to feel short of breath, dizzy, nauseated and flushed. Because anxiety attack symptoms can resemble life-threatening conditions, it’s important to seek an accurate diagnosis and treatment.

Being hit by anxiety disorder is like being washed away in the sea of fear and anxiety. It can happen everywhere – in the supermarket while you’re out and about buying groceries, or at the office while you’re in the middle of an important report. You couldn’t get more scared than when you’re having a anxiety attack. Your blood seems to rise, your pulse quickens, and you breathe heavily. It is important to see a physician and seek anxiety disorder treatment if you have current health conditions that could be aggravated by this episode.

There are some coping techniques that you can perform in the middle of a anxiety disorder. The first is muscle relaxation which involves all major muscle groups in your body like the legs, shoulders, and arms. Tense your arms and hold it for about ten second then release. The same goes with your legs and shoulders. As you do this, don’t forget to take deep breaths because breathing is an important aspect of relaxation.

When to see a doctor
If you have any anxiety attack symptoms, seek medical help as soon as possible. anxiety attacks are hard to manage on your own, and they may get worse without treatment. And because anxiety attack symptoms can also resemble other serious health problems, such as a heart attack, it’s important to get evaluated by your health care provider if you aren’t sure what’s causing your symptoms.

The goal of treatment is to eliminate all of your anxiety attack symptoms. With effective treatment, most people are eventually able to resume everyday activities.

The main treatment options for anxiety attacks are medications and psychotherapy. Both are effective. Your doctor likely will recommend starting with just one type of treatment, depending on your preference and whether there are therapists with special training in anxiety disorders in your area.

High quality research has shown that a 10-12 session therapy can work as well as medications for anxiety. This approach is more like getting some coaching on anxiety management techniques than “therapy” as you might usually think of it. And it seems to work better than medications if you look at how people are doing 6 months after treatment.

Cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you change thinking (cognitive) patterns that trigger your fears and anxiety attacks. It can also help you change the way you react (behave) to anxious or fearful situations. During therapy sessions, you learn to recognize things that trigger your anxiety attacks or make them worse, such as specific thoughts or situations. You also learn ways to cope with the anxiety and physical symptoms associated with anxiety attacks.

As your symptoms improve, you and your therapist will develop a plan to taper off therapy. You may agree to schedule occasional maintenance visits to help ensure that your anxiety attacks remain under control.

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Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms-Stop GAD Now!

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) as the name suggests is an anxiety disorder characterized by extreme worry about everyday activities and issues. People who suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms feel like they are living on the edge all of the time as they are constantly anticipating that everything will suddenly go wrong and that they won’t be able to cope. Health, work, relationships, finances, you name it, a person with GAD will be worrying excessively about it.

A person suffering of generalized anxiety disorder is constantly worrying, develops obsessions, and is experiencing a large amount of stress and a feeling of uncertainty. A sufferer might feel that he or she is the only one in this world facing such problems and that he or she has no way to escape this situation.

There are some symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder that are usually known by everybody. They are the most common symptoms and include physical reactions such as shallow breathing, muscular tension and pains, a constant state of fatigue, and trembling. Besides these symptoms, the sufferers also experience sleeping problems like insomnia or frequent nightmares, have an increased level of irritability and might even accuse memory loss, difficulty to concentrate or periods of confusion.

Suffering of generalized anxiety disorder may affect one’s social life in a very negative manner. Before even realizing it, the sufferer will start to avoid going out and socializing, because of the constant worry he or she is experiencing. The overwhelming feeling that something bad is going to happen will stop the sufferer from doing his or hers normal activities, this including meeting people. In time, he or she will become a shy and withdrawn person.

Sometimes a person affected by this disorder is impaired to correctly complete his or hers job requirements. Sometimes the job can become extremely stressful for the one affected by this disorder, even if it is just a normal job. If the job is indeed a very solicitant one and implies a high level of stress, this might even be a cause for generalized anxiety disorder. This disorder might lead to other mental conditions such as different phobias or depression.

Treatment that does not include medication is also available. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one example. The patient together with a therapist tries to change the thoughts and the behaviors that lead to generalized anxiety disorder.

Another alternative treatment method is self-help. It was developed by someone who suffered of generalized anxiety disorder symptoms and managed to heal with this method. He simplified some complicated psychology principles and turned them into simple treatment methods.

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