What to Do When Your Anxiety Won’t Go Away

What Is Anxiety?

 

Anxiety, or extreme apprehension and worry, is a normal reaction to stressful situations. In some cases, however, worry becomes excessive or chronic and can cause sufferers to dread everyday situations.

The condition of steady, pervasive anxiety is called Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Other anxiety-related disorders include panic attacks—severe episodes of anxiety that occur in response to specific triggers—and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is marked by persistent intrusive thoughts or compulsions to carry out specific behaviors (such as hand-washing). Anxiety so frequently co-occurs with depression that the two are thought to be twin faces of one disorder. Like depression, it strikes twice as many adult females as males.

Generally, anxiety arises first, often during childhood. Evidence suggests that both biology and environment can contribute to the disorder. Some people may have a genetic predisposition to anxiety; however, even so, development of the condition is not inevitable. Early traumatic experiences can also reset the body’s normal fear-processing system so that it is hyper-reactive.

Anxiety is typified by exaggerated worries and expectations of negative outcomes in unknown situations, and such concerns are often accompanied by physical symptoms. These include muscle tension, headaches, stomach cramps, and frequent urination. Behavioral therapies, with or without medication to control symptoms, have proved highly effective against anxiety, especially in children.

Symptoms of Anxiety

Typically, those who suffer from prolonged anxiety experience a range of symptoms, including:

• excessive worry about health, money, family, work, or school performance—even when there are no signs of trouble
• irrational expectations of the worst outcome in many situations
• inability to relax
• irritability
• insomnia
• tiredness
• headaches
• muscle tension
• difficulty swallowing
• trembling or twitching
• frequent urination

Causes of Anxiety

In people with anxiety disorders, the brain circuitry that controls the threat response goes awry. At the heart of the circuit is the amygdala, a structure that flags incoming signals as worrisome and communicates with other parts of the brain to put the body on alert for danger. Early life events, especially traumatic ones, can program the circuitry so that it is oversensitive and sends out alarms too frequently and with only minor provocations. Survival mandates a system for perceiving threats and taking quick, automatic action, but those with anxiety see threats where there are none, perhaps because emotional memories color their perceptions.


Treatment of Anxiety

Research demonstrates that the most effective treatments for anxiety are behavioral. Such treatments often involve gradually exposing sufferers to the situations they fear. Anxiety therapy may also focus on changing distorted thought patterns that underlie the condition. Drugs may help patients control their anxiety, but they are typically effective only during treatment and do not usually cure the condition. Increasingly, researchers are finding that mindfulness meditation can be a successful technique that helps lessen anxiety.

Anxiety disorders can often be addressed successfully with a combination of therapy and medication. For therapy, patients may undergo psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, in which they learn to change how they respond to situations that induce anxiety. For medications, clinicians may, for limited periods of time, prescribe antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or tricyclics, tranquilizers such as benzodiazepines; they may also prescribe beta blockers for specific events. Different strategies can also help people who experience feelings of anxiety but the severity of which falls below the clinical threshold for diagnosis. Habits such as exercising, sleeping well, and limiting the amount of caffeine and alcohol consumed can prove helpful. Strategies such as taking deep breaths, acknowledging limits to fully controlling situations, push back against anxious or irrational thoughts, and observing the circumstances that tend to produce anxiety are proven to reduce anxiety by helping people feel better prepared in the future.

What to Do When Your Anxiety Won’t Go Away 

BY Linda Esposito

“Every time I think my anxiety is gone for good, it comes back worse than before. Can you help me?”

From time to time I get email asking for advice on how to make anxiety go away. For some reason I’m reminded of a rude houseguest, or a family member that lingers and looms. Perhaps the connection isn’t completely off base.

For the most part, anxiety is a condition that comes and goes. But for some, anxiety never goes away completely. That’s the bad news. The good news is you can manage the symptoms so they don’t manage you. If it's helpful, consider your anxiety as a chronic
condition that needs constant monitoring. Miss a day of treatment and you may throw your system off. Having a plan means your daily To-do list includes anti-anxiety strategies.

Because anxiety can occur at three levels: brain, behavior and subjective experience, it makes sense to tackle numerous fronts.

Here are 9 things you can do on any given day to get on the right side of calm.

I. Outsmart Your Brooding Ways

1. Fire the “What-ifs Committee” inside your brain. One of the most difficult tasks is talking yourself out of the foreboding and menacing danger which (you think) threatens you. In reality, your fear is not menacing, and may not even exist. Anxiety is not actually fear, because fear is based on something right in front of you, a real and objective danger. Becoming aware of defaulting to worst-case scenarios will help you avoid being trapped in an endless loop of what-ifs.

2. Control your inner dialogue. Check your vocabulary for unhealthy words such as hate, stupid, always, never, ugly, unlovable, defective, and broken. Replace black-or-white language with more neutral terms.

3. Fall in love with the Cognitive-Behavioral Triangle. Anxious people often feel “attacked” by their feelings. In reality, feelings come after a thought. Being aware of your thought process is crucial, especially because some thoughts are core beliefs, or internalized scripts that are ingrained and automatic. If you struggle with overreacting in the heat of the moment, it’s likely because unhealthy feelings lead to the same ol’ unhealthy behaviors. Remember the following diagram:

Thoughts —> Feelings —> Behaviors

For extra support about rewiring your thoughts, check out this in-depth article.

II. Behavioral Strategies

1. Meditate to promote mindfulness. Your mind simply cannot become calm,
 confident and clear, if you do not pay attention to paying attention:

• You can’t stop boredom from bothering you if you don’t realize you’re checking out in the first place
• You can’t overcome avoidance if you don’t recognize you’re dreading reality this very moment
• You can’t practice steps to feel calm if you don’t listen to your body’s stress signals

2. Be where you are. One of my favorite anxiety hacks is giving 100% of my attention to the task at hand. For example, if I’m helping my son with his homework, I put everything else aside and focus my attention on quizzing him on vocabulary words. I don’t try and cook dinner or check email during this time because multi-tasking is bad for the brain. According to a recent time.com article:

“Every time you switch your focus from one thing to another, there’s something called a switch-cost,” says Dr. Earl Miller, a professor of neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Your brain stumbles a bit, and it requires time to get back to where it was before it was distracted.

One recent study found it can take your brain 15 to 25 minutes to get back to where it was after stopping to check an email.”

3. Work faster. I know, this seems downright counterintuitive to all the anxiety advice about slowing down and paying attention. But working more quickly and efficiently saves time because trusting your skills and talents means you don't get sucked into the perfectionist trap.

III. Healthy Lifestyle Habits

1. Breathe. Slow and deep breathing is the cornerstone of calm. Start by breathing in and out slowly. After a few seconds practice the 4-4-4: Inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, then exhale for a count of four. Let the breath flow in and out effortlessly. Repeat four times.

2. Drink more water. Dehydration may affect anxiety in a variety of ways. One sign is that your body starts to function improperly: Hormone distribution is impacted because of poor blood flow, muscles may tense up, and your brain may weaken or change as a result of water loss.

3. Make sleep a priority. Our culture celebrates those who work hard and play hard, but there’s a price. If you’re irritable, sluggish and drained, chances are you’re sleep deprived.

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF), along with a multi-disciplinary expert panel, issued its new recommendations for appropriate sleep duration. Here are the adult recommendations:                                              

• Younger adults (18-25): 7-9 hours
• Adults (26-64): 7-9 hours
• Older adults (65+): 7-8 hours

In short, seeing your own worry list as a problem to be solved each and every day means minimizing unnecessary anxiety. Best of all, you’re harnessing your excess energy to get things done.

From: www.psychologytoday.com
Images from Internet

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