Anxiety Disorders

“Toxic worry is a disease of the imagination.” Edward Hallowell, MD

Generalized Anxiety Disorder: a free floating worry with no distinct object; characterized by a continual feeling of anticipated disaster in the areas of money, health issues, family problems, or difficulties at work. Symptoms: can’t relax; startle easily; difficulty concentrating; trouble falling asleep or staying asleep; fatigue, headaches, muscle aches, and hot flashes

Specific Phobias: an intense, irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger, such as heights, escalators, elevators, bridges, flying, etc. Symptoms: the feared object/situation brings on panic attacks or severe anxiety.

Social Phobia: an experience of becoming overwhelmingly anxious and excessively self-conscious in everyday social situations. It’s an intense fear of being watched and judged by others. People suffering from this disorder can worry for days and weeks before a dreaded situation. Symptoms: sweating, blushing, trembling, and difficulty talking.

Panic Disorder: involves sudden attacks of terror, usually accompanied by a pounding heart, sweatiness, faintness, dizziness, nausea or chest pains. Symptoms: Often feel like they’re having a heart attack, are losing their minds, or are on the verge of death. People can become very disabled by this disorder which can come on at any time, even during sleep. Don’t know when it will happen or what trigger is.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: People with OCD have persistent, upsetting (obsessions) and use rituals (compulsions) to control the anxiety these thoughts produce. Most of the time, the rituals end up controlling them. Symptoms: obsessive washing of hands, locking and relocking doors, touching things in a particular sequence, checking and re-checking.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: results from a terrifying ordeal that involves physical harm or the threat of physical harm. It can also result from a variety of traumatic incidents such as mugging, rape, torture, being kidnapped or held captive, child abuse, car accidents, train wrecks, plane crashes, or natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.  Symptoms: easily startled, become emotionally numb, can become very aggressive to the point of violence, relive the trauma in their thoughts during the day and in nightmares, and may experience flashbacks in which they believe the trauma is happening all over again.

TREATMENT OF ANXIETY DISORDERS

1. Medication Therapy:
   1. Benzodiazepines: Valium, Xanax, Klonopin: must be used carefully because of their addiction potential/ link to Alzheimer’s ****
   2. Anti-Depressants (SSRIs): Zoloft, Lexapro
2. Psychotherapy:
   1. Cognitive-Behavioral: helps change thinking patterns
   2. Exposure-based therapy: gradual encounter of fear
   3. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT):  Mindfulness skills; Emotion regulation skills; Distress Tolerance skills; Interpersonal Effectiveness skills
   4. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): mimics REM sleep patterns in which the brain is attempting to process information between its two hemispheres; problem: trauma and certain other anxieties do not process; instead, they get stuck; purpose of EMDR is to process that part of the brain that has been traumatized or is otherwise stuck
3. Lifestyle Therapy: diet, **exercise**, meditation, sleep, prayer, sacraments
4. Treatment of ADHD: Attention Deficit Disorder can create anxiety