Archive for the 'Anxiety' Category

Anxiety Attacks Are You Suffering From Cumulative Stress?

Stress can be a major contributor to an anxiety or panic condition or the trigger that will start anxiety disorders. For many people who have personalities that are predisposed to anxiety, stressful events or the accumulation of stressful events over a relatively short period of time can lead to anxiety symptoms.

As our economy becomes increasingly perilous, more and more people are struggling with anxiety. You are not alone! Millions of Americans are grappling with panic attacks, extreme anxiety and the negative effects of these conditions. The symptoms can be frightening and contribute to depression and more trouble with your job or family.

To determine whether your stress load has become too much, think back over the past year or two of your life. Think about the events or changes in your life that may have contributed to your stress level. Individual events or changes may not have been overwhelming by themselves but when they are coupled with other events, the cumulative effect may be major.

Here are some events that are high stress, medium stress and low stress:

HIGH STRESS EVENTS

•Death of spouse or child

•Divorce

•Marital / child separation

•Jail

•Victim of a violent attack or sexual assault

•Death in the family

•Major medical problems

•Marriage (a happy event but also one that brings about a lot of changes and stress)

•Losing a job

MEDIUM LEVEL STRESS EVENTS

•Problems in Your Marriage

•Retirement

•Family members or close friends with health problems

•Pregnancy

•Sexual dysfunction

•New addition to the family (baby, adoption etc.)

•Death of a friend

•Financial difficulties

•Changing jobs

•Foreclosure or acquiring new debt such as a mortgage

•Child going to college

•Problems with family members or in-laws

•A change in living situation (location, type of residence etc.)

LOW STRESS EVENTS

•Problems with boss

•Change in working hours or job responsibilities

•Changing schools

•Changing social activities or friends

•Starting or finishing school

•Trouble sleeping

•Gaining weight

•Vacations and Holidays

•Minor legal problems such as misdemeanors, speeding tickets etc.

If you have experienced 2 or 3 high stress events over the past couple of years you are probably dealing with an anxiety problem.

Most people will have problems coping with that many negative events and will likely see their stress manifested in an anxiety condition. If you have experienced one high stress event and multiple medium or low stress events you may also have a significant and detrimental problem with anxiety. You could also be struggling if you experienced a high number of medium or low stress events in succession.

When you experience these problems back to back, your mind and body don´t have a chance to recover before they have to go into overdrive to deal with the next problem. Recovering from the loss of a spouse, child or loved one can be a long process and any added or additional problems may simply be too overwhelming and trigger panic attacks even in people who never previously struggled with anxiety.

If you take a moment to consider, it is easy to see why anxiety problems and panic attacks are such an increasing problem in today´s world. The level of stress that must be managed on a daily basis seems to grow with each passing day. It´s important to consider what you have been through over the past couple of years and whether that is contributing to your current unrest.

For many people, finding an outlet where you are free from worry is a great way to find some respite from the stress. Find time in your day to do something you enjoy. Do you have a hobby you enjoy or an interest you would like to pursue but you haven´t devoted sufficient time to it?

Stop waiting and start finding the time to enjoy your garden, a game of softball with friends, your bowling league or walking on nature trails. There are so many ways to find avenues of enjoyment and spend time with friends and loved ones. You need this time to recover from the stress of daily life and build up reservoirs of strength to deal with new challenges.

Anxiety Attacks What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder How do I Identify What Can Be Done About It?

Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD for short is usually diagnosed by a doctor through a process of elimination based on the symptoms you present. It is a hard condition to diagnose because many of the symptoms related to this problem can also be present in other conditions.

This problem involves severe anxiety over a period of at least six months but you dont have to contend with panic attacks or other problems related to phobias and obsessions. When struggling with GAD, you have persistent, excessive worry over at least two aspects of your life although most sufferers find they deal with many more troubling thoughts.

The stress for GAD sufferers usually focuses on money, health, relationships or school or job performance. The worry that you feel is not just occasional and related to specific events like an interview or a coming promotion but persistent, excessive and time consuming.

In order to be diagnosed with this problems the anxiety needs to make you upset and interfere with your ability to maintain successful relationships or perform properly at your job. Hampering your ability to function is a key component of the diagnosis but it is also the reason this condition poses so many problems to sufferers.

Some of the symptoms of GAD include:

•Exhaustion

•Problems focusing or concentrating

•Being easily irritated

•Muscle tightness

•Problems sleeping

While this condition can affect people of any age, the focus of the anxiety tends to be different at different stages of life. Children and young adults focus their worry on academic achievement while adults may direct their stress towards finances, job performance and relationships.

The fear can be extremely damaging and negatively impact your life. Often the dread of losing control or the inability to cope with stress, failure, rejection or any other difficult feelings can lead to extreme avoidance of any situation which will cause depression in these areas.

There are ways to cope with this problem and relieve the disturbing feelings. One of the best ways is to find a method of relaxation to ease the muscle tension that is present throughout your body. Sometimes dealing with the physical aspects of anxiety can trigger the mind to release its worries as well.

A good way to relieve tense muscles is to practice yoga, meditation or progressive muscle relaxation. All of these methods of stress reduction can help your body as well as your mind cope with negative and damaging thoughts. Finding an outlet for the stress is important.

While any of these methods will work, the one you choose is dependent on your comfort level. If you are not willing to engage in a consistent program of relaxation then any positive effects will be transitory at best. Only sustained practice will lead you to healthier body and a more relaxed mind.

OCD Confront Your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder With The Positive Thought Redirection Technique!

OCD can be a pesky little problem to get rid of. In some cases prescriptions drugs will be needed to address the obsessions, the possible depression and other problems you may be facing. Popular medicines to treat this condition include Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.

While prescription drugs certainly have their merits and are an important option to be considered, especially in acute cases, drugs do have side effects. You can use cognitive behavior therapy to both control the symptoms and reduce the anxiety, obviating the need to perform soothing anxiety reducing rituals.

Cognitive behavior therapy is a great way to address, confront and combat the obsessions and compulsions taking hold of your life. The basis of this approach is to try to reduce the immense and exaggerated catastrophic thinking that is fueling the anxiety that is the basis for both the obsessions and compulsions.

Did you run someone over with your car? Better keep checking that rearview mirror! What is that in the road? I better pull over and get out and look behind me! It felt like something hit my car or I hit something? The thoughts just keep racing, unbidden and unwanted through your mind. As the thoughts continue to run through your mind, the anxiety only increases.

The only way to soothe those feelings is to check the rearview mirror and keep checking it every time the negative thoughts cycle through again. You need to retrace your route 1, 2, 3 times or more just to ensure you didnt hit anything.

Cognitive behavior therapy or CBT is a good way to confront OCD. This process involves retraining the thoughts and routines of your life so that you no longer need to perform compulsive rituals to keep your world in order and the fears at bay.

By using exposure and response prevention, an important component of this approach, you will gradually expose yourself to the things you fear and learn ways to deal with it without using compulsive responses.

Behavior modification is always an important tool when dealing with anxiety based conditions. By using exposure and response prevention, you are exposing yourself to situations that stir up the obsessive thoughts and then preventing yourself from engaging in compulsive behaviors.

If you are worried about germ infested door handles then you would have to touch one you considered dirty and gradually reduce the number of times you would wash your hands after such contact until you can refrain from the behavior.

Now, this approach is a lot easier on paper then it is in practice. Refraining from compulsions is extremely difficult. Therefore, you will probably need outside help from a spouse, family member or friend to help you control the compulsions.

Before you can do this though, you need to tell your family what´s been going on. They probably already know that something isn´t right and they are probably worried it´s something even worse than what you is about to tell them.

Once the obsessions and compulsions are out in the open, your family can help to modify your behavior. The goal for you will be to gradually reduce the number of times that you check and recheck.

Now your compulsions won´t disappear until you address the anxious thoughts that are causing the compulsions. Curing the anxious thoughts requires training the brain to see the positive, not the negative. This is easier said then done but Positive thought redirection is a good place to start.

Positive thought direction entails redirecting the negative thoughts that crop up to more positive ones. It is a process of training your brain to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. It is a technique that requires both practice and discipline but it also very effective in helping to reduce negative thoughts, doubts and fears.