|
Anxiety
 Anxiety is an emotional state in which people feel uneasy, nervous, or fearful. People usually experience anxiety about events they cannot control or about events that seem threatening or dangerous. It affects how we feel, how we behave and has very real physical symptoms. Anxiety usually feels like fear but whereas we know what we are frightened of, we often don't know what we are anxious about.
However, too little anxiety or too much anxiety can cause problems. Individuals who feel no anxiety when faced with an important situation may lack alertness and focus. On the other hand, individuals who experience an abnormally high amount of anxiety often feel overwhelmed and unable to accomplish the task at hand. People with too much anxiety often suffer from one of the anxiety disorders; it is a group of mental illnesses.
The General Anxiety Disorder is characterized by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events. People with GAD tend to always expect disaster and can't stop worrying about health, money, family, work or school. In people with GAD, the worry often is unrealistic or out of proportion for the situation. Daily life becomes a constant state of worry, fear and dread.
Types of Anxiety:
Existential anxiety - The experience of meaninglessness and the creation of meaning are closely related to the experience of Angst or existential anxiety. This occurs against the backdrop of the personal realization that one has ultimately alone in the world and that he/she has to contend with the mortality and other limitations, taking responsibility for oneself in the face of endless challenges and confusions.
Test anxiety -
Test anxiety is the uneasiness, apprehension, or nervousness felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam. Students suffering from test anxiety may experience any of the following: the association of grades with personal worth, embarrassment by a teacher, taking a class that is beyond their ability, fear of alienation from parents or friends, time pressures, or feeling a loss of control.
Stranger anxiety - Anxiety when meeting or interacting with unknown people is a common stage of development in young people.
Anxiety in palliative care - Some research has strongly suggested that treating anxiety in cancer patients improves their quality of life. The treatment generally consists of counseling, relaxation techniques or pharmacologically with benzodiazepines.
Causes of General Anxiety Disorder:
Genetics -
Some research suggests that family history plays a part in increasing the likelihood that a person will develop GAD. This means that the tendency to develop GAD may be passed on in families.
Brain chemistry - GAD has been associated with abnormal levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Neurotransmitters are special chemical messengers that help move information from nerve cell to nerve cell. If the neurotransmitters are out of balance, messages cannot get through the brain properly. This can alter the way the brain reacts in certain situations, leading to anxiety.
Environmental factors - Trauma and stressful events, such as abuse, the death of a loved one, divorce, changing jobs or schools, may lead to GAD. GAD also may become worse during periods of stress. The use of and withdrawal from addictive substances including alcohol, caffeine and nicotine, can also worsen anxiety.
Treatments:
Psychiatrists often prescribe benzodiazepines, a group of tranquilizing drugs to reduce anxiety in people with high levels of anxiety. Benzodiazepines help to reduce anxiety by stimulating the GABA neurotransmitter system. It can work quickly with few unpleasant side effects but they can also be addictive. In addition, benzodiazepines can slow down or impair motor behavior or thinking and must be used with caution particularly in elderly persons.
Stress
A stress is an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well-being. Some people reaction to stress includes tension, irritability, inability to concentrate, and a variety of physical symptoms that include headache. Others view stress as the response to these situations. This response includes physiological changes such as increased heart rate and muscle tension as well as emotional and behavioral changes. However, most psychologists regard stress as a process involving a person’s interpretation and response to a threatening event.
As we should know, not all stress is bad for our health but there are also some reasons that stress becomes good. In fact, everyone needs stress in their lives; without it, life would be dull and unexciting. Stress adds flavor, challenge and opportunity to life. Stress can pump you up, give you energy and supply that enthusiasm for living. Stress is an unavoidable part of life. The challenges caused by stress help to develop new skills and behavior patterns. The problems occur, however, when stress becomes excessive. It can become destructive and can turn into distress. When stress gets out of control, it may harm your health, your relationships, and your enjoyment of life.
The four types of stress:
Acute stress - It is the most common and most recognizable form of stress, the kind of sudden jolt in which you know exactly why you’re stressed: for instance, you were just in a car accident or it can be something scary but thrilling such as a parachute jump or a bungee jump. Normally, your body rests when these types of stressful events cease and your life gets back to normal. Because the effects are short-term, acute stress usually doesn’t cause severe or permanent damage to the body.
Episodic acute stress - Those who suffer acute stress frequently, whose lives are so disordered that they are studies in chaos and crisis. They're always in a rush but always late. If something can go wrong, it does. They take on too much, have too many irons in the fire, and can't organize the slew of self-inflicted demands and pressures clamoring for their attention. They seem perpetually in the clutches of acute stress.
Chronic stress - While acute stress can be thrilling and exciting, chronic stress is not. This is the grinding stress that wears people away day after day, year after year. It destroys bodies, minds and lives. It wreaks chaos through long-term attrition. It's the stress of poverty, of dysfunctional families, of being trapped in an unhappy marriage or in a despised job or career.
Traumatic stress - Severe stress reactions can result from a catastrophic event or intense experience such as a natural disaster, sexual assault, life-threatening accident, or participation in combat. After the initial shock and emotional fallout, many trauma victims gradually begin to recover. But for some people, the psychological and physical symptoms triggered by the trauma don't go away, the body doesn’t regain its equilibrium, and life doesn’t return to normal. This is a condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Some common things that cause stress:
- pressure to perform at work, at school or in sports
- threats of physical violence
- fear
- uncertainty
- money worries
- arguments
- family conflicts
- divorce
- bereavement
- unemployment
- alcohol or drug abuse
Treatments for stress:
Only in exceptional circumstances is your doctor likely to prescribe medication to help you cope with stress, although some types of anxiety can be treated with antidepressants. Rather than relying on medicine, it is usually far better to try and identify the things in your life that are causing stress and have a deal with them. You may try to apply the stress management techniques in the form of counseling, psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. Complementary approaches include aromatherapy and reflexology and these may, if nothing else provides a quiet, relaxed environment in which to wind down. Meditation can help relaxation, and practicing yoga or the Alexander technique may help to relieve muscle pains and help to control breathing in stressful situations.
Treatment for both Stress and Anxiety:
 Chemicals in our brains can make us eat too much, sleep too much, or not eat or sleep at all, while we worry over even the smallest things.
Most prescription antidepressants have a long list of potential side effects everything from nausea to reduced sexual functioning. Even when they help, they may at the same time increase some forms of stress because their side effects make you uncomfortable or discouraged. There is evidence now that certain prescription drugs at times actually have led to dangerous results: for example, Xanax has produced effects of addiction in some patients, including increasing tolerance by the body and withdrawal symptoms. There are recent studies showing that Prozac has increased the risk of suicide in younger people.
Relagen is not a prescription drug, and is made from NATURAL ingredients. When taken in these appropriate amounts, the active ingredients in Relagen are not known to have any side effects. Just choosing Relagen can relieve your mind.
For an effective natural and herbal remedy to treat Stress and Anxiety in even its severe form visit the Relagen product web site: www.relagen.com
*Data is copyright © HerbalHealthier.com |
