By: Bridget Brelet
Anxiety is something that is common among most people. It is said that “anxiety disorders affect nearly 1 in 5 American adults each year”. With that being said, it is one of the most researched mental illnesses in the world. Anxiety is defined by having one or more of the many symptoms it can cause: heart racing, sweating, pacing, uneasy feelings, headaches, and many more. The problem with anxiety is that most doctors do not know when the illness switches from everyday worries to constantly worrying ."Everybody has anxiety," says Dr. Daniel Pine, a psychiatrist and an NIH neuroscientist. "The tricky part is how to tell the difference between normal and abnormal anxiety”.
Most people do not know this but there are many different types of anxiety out there. One of the most common types of anxiety disorder is social anxiety disorder, or social phobia. It affects both women and men equally—a total of about 15 million U.S. adults. Without treatment, social phobia can last for years or even a lifetime. People with social phobia may worry for days or weeks before a social event. They’re often embarrassed, self-conscious, and afraid of being judged. They find it hard to talk to others. They may blush, sweat, tremble, or feel sick to their stomach when around other people.Other common types of anxiety disorders include generalized anxiety disorder, which affects nearly 7 million American adults, and panic disorder, which affects about 6 million. Both are twice as common in women as in men.
The good news is that there is treatment for people dealing with anxiety. There are two different routes people can take when they are seeking help. The medication route and the therapy route, most people do both. The medication route deals with trying to find the right medication that will help with your specific symptoms. There are hundreds of medicines a person can try, the hard part will just be factor of limitation when seeing which one will work. The therapy route is called CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. This is where your brain is trained to think differently. “Treatment for anxiety disorders usually includes both medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is a form of talk therapy. It helps people change both the thinking patterns that support their fears and the way they react to anxiety-provoking situations. Current treatments can be highly effective for most people”.
When trying to get help for this massively growing illness, it is good to know that you are not alone. There are billions on people who go through this every year. Hopefully with more research we can learn how to prevent this illness from happening, because as a person who has major anxiety, I know how troubling this illness can be.
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