Anxiety and Panic Attacks are affecting more and more people. Did you know that 1 in 6 UK adults have an anxiety disorder1?.
Anxiety disorders are the most common of mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (18.1% of U.S. population)2.
You feel anxiety as the result of fear or apprehension of a real or imagined situration, threat, or event. Anxiety is one of the most common of all human emotions, but if you happen to experience a panic attack, or extreme anxiety it can be a terrifying experience.
Common symptoms include the feeing of breathlessness, paralysis,feeling worried, dizziness, nausea, and blurred vision to name a few. And thats just the start!
Usually panic attacks are caused by extreme anxiety, which takes over your senses and logic, leaving you with a feeling of helplessness. This is usually followed by heart palpitations, headaches, chest pains, and feeling sick. Although you know there is nothing to worry about, you sometimes feel that dread feeling or your body goes into overdrive and you feel like having a heart attack even though everything appears ok outside right?
1According to the office of national statistics 2006.
2According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America 2010
Anxiety disorders come in different forms, some are more serious than others but all can be cured with the right treatment. These include:
Phobias create anxiety such as panic attacks, and are identified by either an irrational or excessive fear of a situation, or thing. Some of the most frequently encountered phobias include:
The good news is that there are many effective ways of treating the different forms of anxiety disorder, from casual anxiety, to panic attacks. Currently there are two main ways of treating anxiety, Psychological therapies, and medication which can work both independently, or can be combined.
Psychological Therapies
There is solid evidence and clinical studies to support the effectiveness of talking treatments to cure anxiety. These include Behaviour Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Relaxation techniques, and Exposure Therapy which all deal with the source of the problem in different ways to treat patients.
Anxiety Medication
There are various prescription drugs which can be used to provide rapid relief from anxiety such as Benzodiazepines, but these should only be used to treat severe and disabling cases.
There are also a range of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's), antidepressants, antihistamines and antipsychotics which can also be administered by your doctor.
In most cases, we encourage the use of Psychological Therapies as treatment for anxiety, due to their level of success in treating the different types of anxiety disorder, and the fact that these are non addictive, and are natural.
