When your mind cannot cope with an overwhelming situation rationally, you feel stressed. For a healthy person, a challenging situation can be an opportunity to prepare strongly to overcome it, but the same can be a cause of worry for someone who is under stress.
Life has become so complicated in the new millennium. With the internet, we expose ourselves to tons of information because of its easy access. It is just a click away and you have everything right in front of you. That’s good, but it’s overpowering too. It has heightened the level of competition in every walk of life. Be it in the marketplace, workplace, educational institutions, or, of course, our social life; people just want to be ahead of others.
There are also precarious situations where your reactions can seriously affect your performance. For example, you are presenting a business strategy to the senior management of your company. What you show and how you present it may or may not be unanimously agreed upon. So, if you are anxious about their acceptance more than the quality of your content, it would surely affect your presentation and probably demerit its true benefit to your audience.
How you react to a situation may depend on where you are and what the context of the activity is. If you complain about the quality of food served to you on a business class flight, you may well be within your limits. But if you do that to a street vendor in an underdeveloped country, your reactions may be unwarranted. So, you should know how to react rationally.
Although it
is normal to be anxious from time to time, a prolonged feeling of stress is an
unhealthy mental condition.
Such ongoing anxiety for almost every activity in
one’s life may be a sign of Generalized
Anxiety Disorder (GAD). And that’s bad, for sure!
A generalized anxiety disorder is a difficult state of mind. It is characterized by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worries about everyday life events for practically no obvious reasons. People suffering from GAD have a tendency to think negatively and can’t stop worrying about their health, finances, performance; and much more.
It is estimated that about 6.8 million adult Americans suffer from GAD annually. Globally, around 4 percent of people may experience a generalized anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. The median age of onset for GAD is 31-years-old.
For someone suffering from GAD, life becomes a heavy load of worry, stress, and dread. Consequently, anxiety dominates the thought process and interferes with daily functioning all the time. You would eat, drink, and breathe stressfully. Maybe even skip meals, making you physically weak and discouraging your mental ability to face a situation bravely.
Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
GAD affects the way a person thinks, but symptoms can vary in each case. It may include:
Unrealistic views on problems and overthinking of plans and solutions
Persistent worrying or anxiety about multiple subjects
Perceiving ordinary situations and events as challenging
Fear of making a wrong decision
Difficulty managing uncertain consequences
Difficulty concentrating or the notion that your mind “goes blank”
Inability to minimize the intensity of a worry
Restlessness and an inability to relax
Nausea, diarrhoea, or irritable bowel syndrome
Children and teenagers may also have similar worries about their performance at school or sporting events, avoiding going to school or social events, family members’ safety, lack of confidence, and so on. Many teenage tantrums may be due to anxiety disorders. In fact, it most often begins in childhood and adolescence.
What makes the condition detrimental is that these worries may not go away on their own but could get worse. It is important to detect such behavior as early as possible to avoid turning it into a hardened negative attitude.
What Causes GAD?
It may be difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of GAD, as many types of research and studies have explained various factors that contribute to such disorders. Some of the more well-known causes are genetics, brain chemistry, and personal experiences.
1. Genetics
Some research suggests that family history plays a critical role in increasing the likelihood of a person having symptoms of GAD. This can grow even more severe with the personal experiences that add to it. Many studies have proven that it increases the tendency to develop GAD in families. The malfunctioning of a nerve cell because of genetic defects can contribute to the development of anxiety disorders.
2. Brain Chemistry
Nerve cell pathways connect particular regions of the brain involved in thinking, emotions, and feelings. These nerve cell connections depend on chemicals called neurotransmitters, which transmit information from one nerve cell to the other, enabling you to react to an event. For any reason, if the pathways that connect a particular brain region do not flow smoothly, problems may arise related to mood or anxiety. Depending on the severity of the blockages of neurotransmitters, the possibility of developing GAD may increase.
3. Personal Experiences
Trauma and dreadful events, such as sexual abuse, accidents, the death of a loved one, divorce, changing jobs or schools, and humiliation, may have a major contribution to developing GAD. Also, the use of and withdrawal from addictive substances, such as alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, can worsen the severity of anxiety.
How Bad is GAD?
The biggest difficulty with GAD is identifying the illness correctly. Unfortunately, there are no such labs that can specifically examine to diagnose anxiety disorders. The doctor may conduct various tests to identify physical symptoms and psychological responses in order to arrive at a conclusion.
This requires
a detailed observation of the reports on the intensity and severity of the
symptoms. GAD is diagnosed only if the symptom persists for a longer period
than just a few days. Moreover, the symptoms must also interfere with daily
living, such as causing you to skip work or school activities for a
considerable time.
Having a generalized anxiety disorder can be literally crippling. You would disengage in physical activities as your mental ability discourages you from having meaningful interactions with others. It can isolate you socially and aggravate your fears because of your feelings of insecurity.
In most cases, some observe that anxiety disorders impair the ability to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. This is primarily due to the stressful conditions that make it difficult to concentrate on the tasks at hand. Consequently, this can lead to a lack of confidence and push you to the corner, only to brood over your inabilities, making the condition worse. It increases the risk of depression.
These dysfunctions don’t end there but can interfere with your daily functioning, leading to or worsening other physical health conditions, such as:
Frequent Headaches and Migraines
Sleep disorders and Insomnia
Digestive or bowel movement problems
Chronic pain and illness
Heart problems
The severity of GAD can also lead to suicidal tendencies and substance abuse. Different phobias can create delusions and deceptive illusions of fear and worry. Such phobias can cause panic attacks for no particular reason and a constant dread of the unknown.
How to Treat GAD?
Ideally, you should consult a psychiatrist or psychologist, or any mental health professional that specializes in GAD and other mental illnesses. Usually, the treatment includes a combination of medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). You can also try a non-medicinal approach.
There are plenty of drugs for treating GAD, and this class of drugs is called benzodiazepines. Almost all of them are addictive, sedating, and can even interfere with memory and attention. We sometimes refer to them as “minor tranquilizers” because they can get rid of intense feelings of acute anxiety.
These drugs help ease the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as restlessness and muscle tension. Common benzodiazepines can exaggerate the effects of sedation when combined with other medicines. It can also react with dangerous consequences if mixed with alcohol. Some anti-depressants may take longer to take effect, but they’re safer and more appropriate for the long-term treatment of GAD.
2. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
This is a psychotherapeutic treatment that teaches you to recognize and alter thought patterns and behaviors that trigger anxious feelings. The fundamental concept behind CBT is that our thoughts and feelings play a crucial role in our behavior. CBT gives a realistic approach to help limit distorted thinking that causes worries.
Cognitive behavior therapy is short-term and focused on helping patients deal with a very specific problem. It is empirically supported and has been effective in helping patients overcome a wide variety of dysfunctional behaviors. Some of the CBT techniques used by mental health professionals are Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Multimodal Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
3. Non-Medicinal Approach
If you have the willpower to undergo a non-medicinal approach to cure your anxiety disorders, it would be the best panacea. Though CBT is very focused and effective, the professional fee and tests can be expensive. And as for medications, they are not only expensive but can also have unwarranted side effects.
Your preference to avoid medications and take honest initiatives to rectify your thought process itself is a step towards its cure. Non-medicinal approaches to effectively address your GAD issues include breathing exercises, a disciplined lifestyle, regular mealtime, deep sleep, and fitness activities. Even if you undergo CBT and medications, there are a lot of lifestyle corrections that are non-medical.
So, your treatment should start with non-medication and proceed to CBT if you are not getting the desired results, and finally medication only if the earlier two approaches fail.
How to Prevent GAD?
Sadly, GAD cannot be completely avoided because you cannot predict what may trigger your anxiety illness.However, you can take precautionary steps to reduce the impact or lessen the symptoms whenever you experience anxiety. These steps include:
Get help at the earliest, as delaying the impact of anxiety can be hard to treat.
Consult your physician or pharmacist before taking any over-the-counter drugs. The chemical composition of some drugs can trigger your anxiety symptoms.
Abstain from substance abuse, including alcoholism, tobacco, and other deadly drugs.
Seek counseling or support after a traumatic or overwhelming experience.
Practice a holistic lifestyle that includes yoga, meditation, and the 8 wellness dimensions.
Conclusion
Life is tough, and it’s getting even more challenging with every passing day. That doesn’t mean it is difficult to have a pleasant life. In fact, there are many more conveniences at our fingertips than in earlier times. Job opportunities have grown manifold. Access to several marketplaces is now just a click away. But the competition has also grown more fierce than ever. Our attitudes, feelings, and behavior have undergone a dramatic change altogether. Thanks to social media and easy access to the virtual world.
Unfortunately, it may not be bliss for many who find all these developments overwhelming. Their worries and fears have valid reasons, but there is hardly a choice to prevent them. The difficulty of overcoming these anxious moments and carrying on with them is a serious matter to ponder. An inclusive society that sustains a pleasant environment with no place for the contributors of GAD is the need of the hour.