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How Anxiety Disorders are Treated


Overview

 In this post, I tried to describe what anxiety is, types of anxiety disorders, and how to treat anxiety disorders.
Anxiety




 What are Anxiety Disorders?

 Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress. Everyone feels anxious now and then, it is a normal emotion. We can feel anxious when we are stressed at work, taking a test, or even when having problems at home.

 Anxiety is a diffuse, unpleasant, vague sense of apprehension.

Normal anxiety becomes an Anxiety disorder when it causes significant subjective distress and or impairment in the functioning of an individual. It can prevent you from performing your day to day activity, like going to work, going to the mall, social gatherings, and so on.

Anxiety is the commonest psychiatric symptom in clinical practice and anxiety disorders are one of the commonest psychiatric disorders in the general population.

What are Types of Anxiety Disorders?

The anxiety disorders differ from one another in the type of objects or situations that induce fear. 
Examples of major anxiety disorder include


Social Anxiety Disorder Marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to
Separation Anxiety The individual with a separation anxiety disorder is fearful or anxious about separation from attachment figures
Panic Disorder experiencing recurring panic attacks at unexpected times.
Specific Phobias excessive fear of a specific object, situation, or activity
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Obsession is recurrent and persistent thought, urges, or images that are experienced as intrusive and unwanted.

Anxiety

Symptoms 

•Headache

•Perspiration

•Palpitations 

•Tightness in the chest,

•Mild stomach discomfort

•Restlessness

Diagnosis
As to many psychiatric illnesses, we can not diagnose anxiety
disorders with running simple tests. 

Anxiety disorder is diagnosed only when the symptoms
are not attributable to the physiological effect of a
substance, medication, to another medical condition or
other mental disorders.
Treatment 
For some people, treatment is not necessary. Simple lifestyle
changes can enough to get rid of the symptoms.

However, in moderate and severe cases treatment might be need
to overcome the debilitating symptoms of Anxiety disorders.

These two categories of treatment are used to treat anxiety
disorders:  psychotherapy and medication. 
Psychotherapy Cognitive behavioral therapy
Medication  
  •       SSRI's
  • Benzodiazepines
  • MAOI's
  • Beta-Adrenergic receptor antagonists.

More information on the topic check out:


               


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