The Anxious Brain: An Introduction
You feel a fluttering in your chest… You start to feel lightheaded and faint… You find that you have difficulty breathing.
You get the sensation that your hands and feet are tingling or numb… You start to feel pressure in your chest… You are terrified that you are going to pass away or, at the very least, have a heart attack… You feel like you could be losing your mind… but you’re not!
These are some of the most common signs that someone is having an anxiety attack. Every single day, they are experienced by millions of individuals all around the United States, not to mention those in other nations all over the globe.
It’s possible that you are one of them. You may also know someone who is experiencing this condition, which is another possibility.
In any case, you need to be aware of ways to assist yourself, or someone else whose well-being you care about in coping with anxiety.
And the most effective way to achieve this is to educate yourself about it and help others who suffer from anxiety by providing or seeking the care they so sorely need.
By reading through this book, it is my sincere wish that you, as a long-time sufferer of anxiety and depression, will be able to assist yourself or a loved one, not feel as if they are alone in dealing with this dreadful condition.
That there are other people out there who are suffering exactly as you may be right now at this precise point in time, just like you.
And I hope you are able to obtain care for this condition and triumph over it. You have the ability to stop letting it dictate your life and learn to live with it.
Anxiety Disorders – Debilitating Episodes
During times of severe stress, it is more probable that one may have these incapacitating episodes.
It is very uncommon for those who struggle with anxiety disorders to simultaneously struggle with signs and symptoms of severe depression.
The treatment consists of behavioral counseling, lifestyle adjustments, and medicine. There are situations in which a mix of all three is required. Sometimes, all that is required is a modification to one’s way of life.
A referral to a cognitive behavioral therapist and the use of prescribed drugs are often both components of the standard therapy for mental health issues. This therapy approach is often greeted with opposition and debate.
However, other studies have indicated that the majority of patients obtain more advantages from the drugs and very little from behavioral therapy. Some research suggests that this combination is more beneficial than either approach alone.
Both the patient’s family history and their immediate environment may play a role in determining the most effective course of treatment. It will be easier to determine the most effective methods of therapy if you collaborate closely with a counselor, psychiatrist, or therapist.
Who Suffers From Anxiety?
People that you would never in a million years suspect! In fact, anxiety is such a common illness that almost everybody is capable of being affected by it.
Your brother George, your cousin Buddy, your grandmother Jean, your sister Annie, your next-door neighbor Joe, your very best friend Patti, or your uncle Buddy.
People tend to avoid discussing anxiety because it is seen as a condition of the “I believe I may be going mad” kind, which is associated with feelings of humiliation and the “brush it under the carpet” mentality. Or they might say that they have been suffering for a long time.
Especially if you are someone who is always in the spotlight, like Kim Basinger, for example. Kim managed to conceal the fact that she suffered from an anxiety disorder for a significant portion of her life, despite the fact that she had a long and challenging battle with the condition.
When you see her up there on the “silver screen,” though, you would never think it, would you? However, she has revealed her struggle with anxiety to the general public in a number of interviews, with the hope that more people will become aware of this terrifying disease as a result of this.
It certainly has. She has a lot of guts to share such a personal and intimate part of her life in such a public forum. Kudos to you, Kim!
Even if your parents don’t seem to suffer from anxiety themselves, it’s possible that you might inherit the tendency to experience it from them, so it’s important to keep this in mind.
Bear in mind that this is an unpleasant condition, or one that leads the patient to feel that they are going mad or that they already are.
Nonetheless, not everyone who has suffered from an anxiety attack will go on to acquire a full-blown problem; however, you shouldn’t disregard the possibility that they COULD in the future.
Here is a fact about statistics that you may find fascinating. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that approximately 2.4 million adult Americans are affected by some variety of anxiety or panic disorder.
That comes up to around 40 million! And the incidence rate is two times higher in females than it is in males.
It’s possible that this is one of the factors that leads to women worrying so much about different things.
Coincidentally, the fact that many instances recorded started in adolescence might be credited as the primary reason for individuals not recognizing what is happening to them or that they are suffering from anxiety or panic disorder.
As a consequence of this, it is possible that a child will not be able to adequately describe what they are going through in the same way that an adult would be able to do so.
Listening to your kid(s) is absolutely essential in this situation! You certainly would not want them to go through a life full of hardship without ever discovering the cause of it, would you?
Another fascinating fact to be aware of is that anxiety attacks don’t just happen while a person is awake! They may, and quite often do, occur when a person is asleep. How terrifying do you think it might be to open your eyes to see that? To say that it is indescribable is to understate it.
