Tag: Panic Disorder

Anxiety And Nervouse Breakdown Tie In Together

How do anxiety and nervous breakdown tie in? The term anxiety is an umbrella term which encompasses panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder. The term nervous breakdown is no longer used by the medical profession. It is now referred to as situational depression or anxiety disorder.

While clinical depression and anxiety disorders can be triggered by something that happens in your life, their causes can often be linked to something biological, genetic, neurological, or that occured in your childhood. In contrast, a nervous breakdown could describe the sudden onset of a mental illness, or it may just be your way to process something that happened in your life. The term nervous breakdown conjures up terrible, scary images. But while it is upsetting, it’s important to keep in mind that this anxiety disorder is just your body’s way of saying “Hey, you’re ignoring some feelings here that need to be dealt with.” Panicing in the face of anxiety and nervous breakdown only makes matters worse.

One key to getting through a nervous breakdown (or preventing one) is to stop fighting it off. If you’re starting to feel that everything is just getting to be too much, just try to identify some areas in your life where you can reduce some of your stress and causes of anxiety. The typical reaction when you feel like your are losing control is to get it back again. But getting it back by ignoring what you are feeling is not the way to go about it. In the case of a nervous breakdown, taking back power means actively seeking out rest and peace. If you try to just push through and force yourself to continue beyond what you can mentally or physically take, you actually give your anxiety more power. If you can allow yourself a little patience and space to actually feel what you need to feel, you offset the reasons your mind and body brought you to the point of a nervous breakdown in the first place.

Seek help. Many people look at getting help as a sign that they have lost the battle with their anxiety and nervous breakdown. It is actually the opposite. The fact that you are seeking help means that you are taking a step to being able to take care of yourself and others if necessary. Look at it this way: if you were physically hurt one day and bleeding profusely, you would run stratight to the emergency room. It’s the same with whatever anxiety you’re going through. Professional help and therapy does not have to be a lifelong commitment. Once you have worked out the cause for your pain and suffering and have the tools to prevent it from happening again, you no longer need the help of professionals. But if you avoid seeking them out in the first place, the anxiety and nervous breakdown may have already caused permanent damage.

This information does not substitute medical advice given by a health professional.

The Wear and Tear of Anxiety, Panic, and Nervous Breakdown

The Wear and Tear of Anxiety, Panic, and Nervous Breakdown

People often hear of a type of energy that has little to do with muscles and work, an energy without focus or function nervous energy. And most often than not, people recognize it by any other names such as anxiety, stress, panic, nervous breakdown, or feeling uptight.

Older people have no monopoly on this sense of malaise. Each year, Americans of all ages spend more than $300 million on tranquilizers and sedatives to soothe their fraying nerves.

In reality, stress is a 20th-century phenomenon, the price people pay for a living in our high-powered, fast-paced world. In the short tern, most people pay the price in headaches, heartburn, sleepless nights, and stiff, aching muscles.

In the end, the price gets higher. Stress has been implicated as a contributing factor in conditions that range from alcoholism to hypertension, from arthritis to impotence.

Its effects are cumulative. Whereas, episodes of intense stress affect our immediate well-being, decades of life under pressure affect how long and how well people will continue to live.

Stress is not always negative. Some of lifes happiest momentsbirths, weddings, reunions, retirementsare enormously stressful. Stress is a spice of life, a motivating force for growth and adaptation. But the human body cannot simply differentiate between positive and negative stresses, between genuine threats and vague anxieties.

When stress becomes a problem, it can lead to one devastating mental disorder known as nervous breakdown. Experts do not consider this as a clinical term but more of a popular term because it is commonly used by people to avoid the shame of a particular clinical finding.

Nervous breakdown could also be caused by many factors such as anxiety and panic disorder. Even if they seem to mean the same, each has its own unique characteristic.

People, who were diagnosed with anxiety disorder, generally pertain to those who have mood disorders such as bipolar disorder or depressions.

On the other hand, panic disorder refers to the repeated occurrence of unforeseen panic attacks. Panic happens when your body instantly reacts to whatever kind of stressor that is available as of the moment.

There are times when some people were brought up negatively, with pressures more than what they can handle. These things usually happen when parents tend to demand more items from their kids. What happens next is that their children get anxious of always doing things right according to what their parents have told them. Otherwise, they are bound for numerous punishments.

Yet, despite constant and chaotic stresses, anxieties, and nervous breakdowns, people can actually cope. And most of the time, people cope very well.

Physiologists explain these day-to-day, person-to-person differences in terms of the all-or-none law. Every nerve cell, or neuron, responds either to maximum capacity or not at all. Like a rifle, a neuron either fires or does not.

An overestimated neuron is like a rifle with the safety switch off. Even a slight stimulus can startle it from a quiet to an active state.

The point here is that the more active the nervous system, the more active it is likely to become. This cycle of reactions is caused by the feedback mechanisms of the sensory receptors in the muscles.

With that in mind, it can be concluded that many people nowadays are strolling around with intense nervous breakdowns, anxieties, or panic disorders that frequently transform to physical sensation feeling.

Whatever the meanings are, these things all pertains to one basic truth there is an increasing behavioral and environmental attack. All of these things highly recommend that people, whether young or old, must not take their health undervalued.

The Side Effects of Drugs to Relieve Anxiety Stress

When people get sick, the first thing that comes to mind is taking a couple of pills with water then everything will be alright.

Though this works in some cases, people who experience stress due to anxiety have to be careful since these medication may have certain side effects.

One example is when the person uses the drug Paxil to treat a anxiety stress disorder. According to a test done in different parts of the world, people who have depressive disorder will often experience side effects such as sweating, nausea, insomnia, tremor, ejaculatory disturbance and other genital disorders after taking this drug.

People who have obsessive compulsive behavior, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety and post traumatic stress will also experience side effects but only to a certain degree.

Doctors who prescribe Xanax to patients also experience certain side effects. These include allergies, blurred vision, diarrhea, hyperventilation, difficulty in sleeping, painful menstruation, sexual dysfunction and weight gain or loss.

These will most likely happen when the person increases the dosage which is far more than that given by the doctor or when one doesn’t need the medicine anymore. Some doctors say these are the withdrawal symptoms the individual may expereince when these no longer need to be prescribed to the patient.

Another more popular drug used to treat anxiety disorder is Buspar. Some patients have reported to experience the same side effects as those of Xanax. These also include constipation, numbness, speech difficulty, rapid heart rate, twitching, nervousness and muscle cramps.

The drugs available in the market should only be used on a short term basis. Since a lot of patients have shown to have experienced certain side effects, doctors recommend that the patient comes in first for a proper examination before being prescribed these medications.

Given the side effects of these drugs, some doctors recommend the use of natural or alternative forms of treatment. These include the use of herbs which can be inhaled or ingested which has shown to produce the same or better results without the side effects.

Two of these herbs are Kava and Valerian. The person will be able to get relief and feel relaxed similar to those when taking Valium or Xanax. This can also be mixed with other ingredients if the person doesn’t like the smell or the taste when this is being ingested.

People who don’t like natural herbs can try exercising instead. The person can either sweat this off in a gym or produce the same effects by doing some breathing exercises. The individual can go to the gym and do this or buy an instructional video which can be done at home.

Those who are too tired to drive to the facility or buy one off the shelf can also relieve stress by getting a massage. The person can go to the gym and the beauty salon which have professionals and excellent facilities to treat people who suffer from anxiety stress.

The various treatments to treat anxiety stress should be able to relieve without any other pain in return. The best the doctor can do is change the prescription when this happens or try something new. The health professional should explain the pros and cons of each to the patient so the right one can be chosen.

Understanding Anxiety and Anxiety Attacks

Anxiety is a normal, healthy feeling that is experienced by everyone. It is the body’s way of reacting to stimulus that pushes us to either “fight” or “flight” over a situation. However, when anxiety attacks are chronic, severe, and irrational, and begin to affect the health of a person (physically, psychologically and emotionally), it already becomes a problem that must be addressed immediately. There is a thick line between healthy and unhealthy anxiety attacks. Unfortunately, the demarcation line is almost ignored that normal anxiety crosses into the territory of anxiety disorders.

Types of Anxiety Disorder

There are six different types of anxiety disorder, each has its own characteristics: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a chronic worry or fear over almost everything without even knowing why. They feel anxious from day to day activities and are troubled that bad things will happen. People with GAD show symptoms such as stomach upset, fatigue, restlessness, and insomnia.

Panic disorder is repeated, unexpected panic attacks, and fears that panic episodes will likely to happen. People with panic disorder are likely to have agoraphobia, or fear of being in places where help or escape will be difficult in case of another panic attack. People with agoraphobia are also afraid of being trapped in confined places such as an airplane or crowded areas such as a shopping mall.

Phobia is excessive, irrational, and exaggerated fear over simple things that generally present little or no danger. Common phobias are heights, snakes, spiders, dark, and flying. People with phobias tend to avoid the things they are afraid of in order to escape anxiety attacks. However, avoidance only strengthens the phobia.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that happens after a life-threatening or a traumatic event. People with PTSD show symptoms such as hyper-vigilance, avoiding situations or places that remind them about the event, nightmares and flashbacks about the things that happened, startling easily, and isolation.

Social anxiety disorder or social phobia is fear of being seen negatively by others or fear of getting humiliated in public by other people. Social anxiety is often mistaken as an ordinary extreme shyness. People with this kind of disorder usually isolate themselves from others or event and places where crowd usually gathers. Stage fright is the most common type of social anxiety.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD is a condition where a person has unwanted behavior or thoughts which appear to be impossible to control. People with OCD can have certain obsession such as worries that they might hurt someone or that they have forgotten to turn the lights off. They can also have uncontrollable compulsion. The most common is washing of hands repeatedly.

Do you experience anxiety attacks?

Are you always worried, tense, and on the edge?

Do you feel like you are in danger whenever you are in confined places?

Are you afraid of mingling with strangers, meeting new friends or even meeting relatives?

Do you feel that something bad or catastrophic will happen if certain things are not done according to plan?

Do you experience worry, fear and anxiousness that affect your relationship, work, healthy, and other responsibilities?

Do you feel irrational fear but couldn’t shake it?

Does your anxiety force you to avoid everyday situations and activities?