Generalization Anxiety

Have you ever wondered why you are so nervous? Have you ever tossed and turned all night because you could sleep, but could not quite figure out what was keeping you up? Anxiety is the feeling fear from unknown expectancy, a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, generally about an impendent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Every day we knowingly or unknowingly suffer from this disorder. In recent studies, anxiety has been in association with other disorders such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, somatic symptom disorder, illness anxiety disorder, delusional disorder. Excessive irritation, interruption while sleeping, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, irritability,

Difficulty in controlling anxiety or worry associated with restlessness, Fatigue, concentration, irritability, muscle tension and sleep disturbance. The main component of generalization anxiety disorder is excessive anxiety and worrying about a variety of things. The DSM also reports that the intensity and frequency of worry is out of proportion with the actual likelihood or impact of the anticipated event. A person may visualize the event and the event’s outcome as being of a drastic measure, when in fact the actual results are not as drastic. The National Institute Of Mental Health (NIMH) reports that Generalized anxiety disorders affect about 3.1% American adults age 18 years and older (about 18%) in a given year. The average age of onset is 31 years old.GAD affects about 6.8 million American adults, including twice as many women as men. The disorder develops gradually and can begin at any point in the life cycle, although the years of highest risk are between childhood and middle age. 2% to 4% of the population will meet the criteria for GAD in any given year, where as 4% to 7% of the population will develop GAD at some point in their

A physical exam will be given, and if no physical illness associated with the symptoms can be found then the patient is directed to see a psychiatrist or psychologist. The two known treatments for GAD are psychotherapy and medications. As specified by the Mayo Clinic, Psychotherapy involves taking psychological counseling. Psychotherapy involves working with a therapist to reduce your anxiety symptoms. It can be an effective treatment for generalized anxiety disorder. The types of psychotherapy are Cognitive-behavioral therapy(CBT), Dietary and lifestyle changes and Relaxation therapy. Anti depressants, buspirone, and benzodiazepines (BZD) are some medications used to treat GAD. In a clinical experiment were the psychotherapy and drug treatment in GAD was compared, authors of E. G. Hantouche and V. N. Vahia reports that the few studies of GAD in the literature showed an early but inconsistent efficacy for drug therapy (BZD) which reduced over time. Whereas psychotherapy (CBT or anxiety management), seemed to be more effective in prolonged treatment (2±3 months) with maintained efficacy during follow-up. I would be more incline to agree with the findings of Hantouche and Vahia. Since, CBT therapy deals with exploring the association between thoughts, feeling, and behavior, I would believe that with ongoing therapy and conditioning the mind, body and soul through