What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

Generalized anxiety disorder treatment or (GAD) is a mental state in which your worries and fears happen so much that they interfere with your life to the point where you cannot function or relax. Small things and big things alike make you worry excessively about what might happen or will happen. This in turn makes you worry about something for the rest of the day for no real reason. It also affects you physically. Your body will get tired from all the mental strain and stress and your muscles will ache, you won’t be able to sleep, and be tired all the time.

GAD involves anxiety and worry that is constantly tugging at your mind. Of course everyone has their own problems to deal with and stress over things like health, money, school, family, love, and more but generalized anxiety disorder make a person take it to a whole new level. Small things like someone not returning a phone call turns into someone thinking up new things that aren’t even going to happen or a comment about something bad makes you relate something that is happening into something a lot worse then it is. Whether you realize that your anxiety is a lot more extreme then the situation calls for or that you believe it’s affecting your life negatively, the end result is the same. You can’t turn off your thoughts when you have GAD and they will constantly keep at you and wear your health down.

Symptoms:

The symptoms of GAD fluctuate from person to person. You may notice better and worse times in general or more specific to what time it happens. Stress only adds to the disorder. Some of the symptoms that have been proven are soreness of muscles, trouble falling asleep or staying up, nausea, diarrhea, stomach problems, always tired, and being very edgy. Psychologically you may feel irritated, not able to relax or control your anxiety, the lowering of concentration levels, or even the fear of losing control.

Some children may have GAD but don’t’ realize it and it’s important for the adults to catch the signs of this disorder before it takes a toll on the child. They can spot the symptoms from any of the ones listed above and some of the ones that pertain more to children are: What ifs about the future, perfectionism, the fear of making mistakes, excessive criticism about themselves, feeling like they are to blame for something that wasn’t their fault, or something small like the need for approval and reassurance all the time.

Treatments:

Generalized anxiety disorder treatments are many. A lot of them are psychological. Making necessary life changes may help treat this disorder such as lowering the intake of caffeine, exercising, or changing focus points. For some meditation does wonders, deep breathing, and the ability to relax has to play a big factor. Taking the focus off GAD can be done by taking the problem into your own hands, learning to accept that things happen and challenging the notion that maybe all your worries are not as bad as they seem to be.

Some people with GAD just don’t know how to relax. There are simple easy techniques to learn that can help soothe someones thoughts. The best methods for doing this is to incorporate your five senses seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling.

Seeing - Look at something positive like pictures of cute things or beautiful things in nature like the sunset, the park, gardens. Walk around and look for things that improve the quality of life. Look at the photos and think about the people that you love.

Hearing - There is a lot of music like classical music that is more melody that helps soothe your thoughts. Listen to things that relate to white noise (A neutral sound that cancels noise) things like birds and the sound of waves and if you have no time there are always cds that have those things.

Tasting - The taste of your favorite dessert, things that make you feel more happy about yourself. Food generally tends to make people feel a lot more positive and brings a sense of comfort and completion.

Touching - Pet a pet, touch things that are soft. Get a massage to relax your muscles a lot of stress builds up muscle tension and getting rid of that may just help you.

Smelling - Smell things that bring a sense of relaxation such as candles and air fresheners. Smell the outdoors and all that it brings. The smell of food may be appealing to some, or put on some of those perfume or cologne fragrances that you love so dearly.

Additional Generalized Anxiety Disorder Treatments

The key to dealing with anxiety is to accept your anxiety, to make sure that it’s not taking over your life and being careful. Act like nothing is wrong even though it is, usually taking the first step is all you need. Separate yourself from your anxiety, know that it’s an emotion and that it should not control your whole life, you control your life. Be Optimistic and hope for the best of everything. Look to the good and the upside to things that are happening not the bad or things that you might think will happen.

Every person is different so the treatment for every person can be different dependent on their situation, personality, life experiences, etc. There may be a time where professional help might be needed. These people study the human behavior and are trained and studied in the ways of helping people like you. First it is never a bad idea to consult with a professional to make sure that you don’t’ have GAD. Things like trauma and new life circumstances make cause you to have excess stress that is temporary so make sure that you have GAD. Generally GAD is accompanied by other problems such as alcohol and drug abuse,

depression, and other disorders.

Therapy: One method of treating anxiety disorder is therapy. Therapy can be as useful or better then medication for certain people. Therapy has no downsides and cannot have side effects like medicine can. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one type of treatment that is helpful in treating GAD. Your therapist will help you sort out your thoughts and feelings and identity what kind of thoughts are causing you to think the way you do. Cognitive behavioral therapy involves 5 main points:

Monitoring - In CBT you learn to control your thoughts and emotions. You’ll learn to watch what you are doing and analyze why you are having anxiety and stressing.

Education - Knowledge is power. CBT education is a big power because if you know what you are fighting, then you have a fighting chance. It teaches you what anxiety disorder is and the realization in itself is helpful. To know what you are dealing with gives you more power over your mental state and encourages a more accepting and proactive response instead of just worrying.

Physical Control - Things like Yoga and deep breathing techniques.

Behavioral - Attacking your worries head on is always a strategy. Dealing with negative thoughts allows a person’s fears to subside. To think of more positive things like if I worry less then bad things will happen less.

Cognitive Control - Instead of looking to things and seeing fear and worry these therapists will teach you to evaluate your situation and thinking patterns and see why you think the way you do. As you deal with these negative feelings maybe you will find what is really bothering you and causing you the anxiety that you are feeling.

Medication and GAD

There is also the option of medication. They are most likely prescribed by your therapist. The main three types of medication are Busipiron which is the safest drug but it may not eliminate anxiety. Benzodiazepines work very fast but is temporary. Sometimes they may lead to withdrawal of the drug. Antidepressants is the third most common prescribed drug. It’s used to help your anxiety, it is not instant and sometimes may not be working for a few weeks and may even cause sleep problems.