Living with Anxiety

It’s that pounding in your chest, feeling like you cannot breathe and cannot catch your breath…you think you are suffering a heart attack!  YOU ARENT! All these are typical symptoms of an Anxiety attack. Millions of people throughout the world suffer from Anxiety.  Sometimes it is people you least suspect! It is believed that Anxiety is an inherited disorder. Think about your family for a moment, your parents may or may not show outward signs of it. Interestingly enough Anxiety is twice as common in females as it is in men. Sufferers of this disorder generally believe they are going crazy.

What Is Anxiety?

Imagine for a moment you were standing in front of a fast moving train unable to move, but all the while knowing and understanding the impact on not being able to do so.   Now imagine feeling like this several times a day and you begin to understand how it feels to suffer from an Anxiety Disorder. Anxiety is unseen, you do not know when you are going to suffer it and there simply is no warning. People who suffer anxiety experience paralyzing fear for no obvious reason and worse still, cannot see a way out of the fear.

What Causes Anxiety?

Everything and NOTHING and a patient rarely reports an event that triggered the attack. However having said that, when a sufferer revisits a situation or setting where an earlier attack happened, this could trigger another attack, as they are reminded of how frightening the first attack was. It’s a vicious cycle of fear with the overriding fear of an Anxiety attack/disorder sufferer is to suffer ANOTHER ATTACK!  Anxiety stems from your brain, and is a spontaneous trigger that sets off one’s “fight or flight” defense mechanism resulting in a full blown Anxiety attack. More often than not, Anxiety is brought about by stress from daily life. Mounting bills, work pressures, family issues, and other events can trigger this disorder and bring it to the surface.

Various Types Of Anxiety

Anxiety/Panic Disorder

This form of the disorder brings on sudden attacks that paralyze you with fear for no obvious reason. There are undoubtedly fundamental factors that cause these attacks; however, the sufferer often does not know what those are. Common symptoms are dizziness, light headedness, rapid breathing, pounding heart, tingling sensations in the hands and feet, fear of impending dread. Extremely treatable, the sufferer should seek assistance from a trained health care professional.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Commonly strikes when a sufferer is within a social setting and is very distressing. Activities such as attending University, going out for dinner and going to work are all difficult for the sufferer who often feels they are not welcome. They believe they are always judged by others and can experience trembling, feeling sick, inability to talk, sweating or blushing. Someone suffering Social Anxiety can become more and more upset prior to days leading up to a social event they have committed themselves to, and will be in an anxious frenzy by the time the event occurs. Often they will simply pull out of the social event just before it occurs.

How to overcome Anxiety

Understand and recognize you are having an Anxiety attack and that it will probably only last a few minutes. Focus on slow even breathing and try to redirect your THINKING to something else.

Final thoughts on Anxiety, understand however frightening it feels at the time, you can overcome your Anxiety disorder. To obtain expert advice on this condition simply Click Here!

By MaryAnn Roche.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 2:26 am and is filed under Stress and Anxiety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.