Anxiety

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is an everyday emotion that most people feel at times. For example, worrying about an upcoming interview or feeling stressed about catching a flight on time are normal responses to everyday situations.

Anxiety and stress can improve performance, heighten your senses, and boost motivation. The problem arises when anxiety becomes constant and interferes with your everyday life.

If you live with continual or excessive fear and worry, then what should be a normal emotion has likely developed into an anxiety disorder.

What symptoms do anxiety disorders cause?

Anxiety disorders take several forms, the most common being generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). GAD causes symptoms like:

• Nervousness
• Restlessness
• Irritability
• Social withdrawal
• Difficulties concentrating
• Problems sleeping
• Nausea and diarrhea
• Headaches
• Muscle aches
• Trembling

GAD can affect your work performance and, when severe, make it hard to work at all.

Severe anxiety can cause panic attacks, where you freeze and are unable to function. A racing, pounding heartbeat, shortness of breath, sweating, and shaking are typical of a panic attack. It’s not uncommon for panic attacks to mimic heart attack symptoms.

Frequent panic attacks that happen without a trigger indicate you have panic disorder. People with phobias suffer panic attacks when faced with something they have an extreme fear of. Common examples include spiders (arachnophobia) and confined spaces (claustrophobia). A phobia focused on being with others is called social anxiety disorder.

How is anxiety treated?

The primary treatments for anxiety disorders are talk therapy and medication.

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a proven approach to changing unwanted behaviors. Individual psychotherapy techniques can address the root causes of your anxiety. Medications like anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants help many people by rebalancing the neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) responsible for mood.

It can take time to find the most effective anxiety disorder treatment and feel like you’re making progress. If you’ve tried several drugs and therapies yet aren’t improving, the Neuropsychiatric Care Center offers transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for anxiety.

• TMS is an innovative, noninvasive treatment that uses magnetic energy to change how the neurotransmitters in your brain work. It’s a safe, painless, and effective therapy that doesn’t use drugs and requires no anesthetic or sedative.

Call the Neuropsychiatric Care Center or book an appointment online today for compassionate anxiety disorder treatment.