Anxiety Disorders: Types, Causes, and Symptoms

Content:

1. Types of anxiety disorders.

2. Causes of diseases.

3. Symptoms of anxiety disorders.

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Sense of anxiety and fear not only causes human suffering, but also has a strong adaptive meaning. Fear helps us to protect ourselves from emergencies, and anxiety allows us to be fully prepared in case of threat. Therefore, a feeling of anxiety is a normal emotion. Everyone experienced this. However, if anxiety becomes permanent and causes stress, affecting all aspects of human life, then it's a question of psychological deviation. Anxiety disorder is anxiety without apparent reason. These emotions aren't a consequence of events occurring around. They are caused by a strong psycho-emotional stress.

Types of anxiety disorders.

In order to appoint the right treatment, a doctor needs to determine the type of disease. Medical science identifies several variants of anxiety disorder of personality:

1. Phobias. They are fears that are incommensurable with the real scale of the threat. It is characterized by a panic condition when it comes to certain situations. Patient is difficult to control phobias, even if he wants to get rid of them. The most common are social and specific phobias. The latter are characterized by a feeling of fear of a particular object or phenomenon. There are some common types of phobias, for example, in front of animals, natural phenomena, specific situations, etc. There are fears of trauma, injections, sight of blood, etc. So-called sociophobes are afraid of negative evaluation by other people. Such a person constantly thinks that he looks stupid, afraid to say something in public. As a rule, they lose social ties. This can also attribute to symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder.

2. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It's a person's reaction to certain situations that occurred in the past, which was difficult to confront. A similar situation can be the death of a loved one, a serious trauma and other tragic circumstances. The patient is constantly under obsessive memories. Sometimes it results in nightmares, hallucinations, delusions, experiencing anew. Such people are characterized by emotional over excitation, sleep disturbance, impaired concentration, sensitivity and a tendency to attacks of unreasonable anger.

3. Acute stress disorder (ASD). Symptoms are similar to other types of anxiety disorders. The reason for its development is most often the situation that traumatizes the patient's psyche. However, there are a number of significant differences in this disorder with post-traumatic disorders. Acute stress disorder is characterized by a lack of emotional reaction to occurring events, a person perceives the situation as something unreal, thinks that he is asleep, even his own body becomes a stranger to him. Such a state of health can transform later into a so-called dissociative amnesia.

4. Panic disorder. Panic attacks are basis of this type anxiety disorders. They occurs unexpectedly and rapidly lead the patient into a state of fear. Anxiety-panic disorder can continue from a few minutes to an hour. Panic attacks are characterized by symptoms such as dizziness, shortness of breath, fainting, tremors, increased heart rate, nausea and upset stomach, numbness of limbs, chills and fever, a feeling of tightness and pain in the chest, loss of control over the situation and fear of death.

5. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). It differs from panic attacks by the chronic form. The duration of such a condition can up to several months. Characteristic symptoms of GAD are inability to relax, concentrate attention, fatigue, constant fear, irritation and tension, fear of doing something wrong, difficult process of making any decision. The patient's self-esteem significantly reduce. Such patients, dependent on the opinions of others, have a feeling of inferiority. They are convinced of inability to achieve change for the better.

6. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The main characteristic feature of this form of anxiety disorders is ideas and thoughts that are repetitive, undesirable and inconsistent, as well as uncontrollable. They arise in the mind of patient, and getting rid of them is quite difficult. Most often, there are compulsive disorders on the topic of microbes and dirt, fear of disease or infection disorders. Due to such obsessive ideas, a lot of rituals and habits appear in the patient's life, for example, constant washing of hands with soap, incessant cleaning of apartment or 24-hour prayers. Such actions are reaction to emergence of obsessions. Their main goal is to protect themselves from anxiety. Most patients also suffer from depressive conditions.

Causes of diseases.

Unfortunately, scientists can't establish the exact cause by development of anxiety disorder. However, such a state is not a consequence of weakness of will power, poor upbringing, character defect, etc. Studies of anxiety disorders continue today. Scientists have determined that the development of disease is facilitated by the following factors:

· Changes occurring in the brain.

· The influence of the environmental factor on the human body.

· Failure in the work of inter-neural connections, which take part in emergence of emotions.

· Prolonged stress. It's able to disrupt transmission of information between parts of the brain.

· Diseases in structures of the brain that are responsible for emotions and memory.

· Genetic predisposition to this type of disorder.

· Psychological trauma, stressful situations and other emotional shocks in the past.

Also, scientists identify a number of diseases that can affect development of anxiety disorder:

· Mitral valve prolapse. It occur when one of valves can't close properly.

· Hyperthyroidism. It's characterized by increased activity of the gland.

· Hypoglycemia, which is characterized by a decrease at blood sugar levels.

· Abuse or dependence on stimulants of mental activity, such as drugs, amphetamines, caffeine, etc.

· Another manifestation of anxiety disorder is panic attacks, which are also capable of appearing against a background of certain diseases.

Symptoms of anxiety disorders.

Signs of anxiety disorder vary depending on the type of disease. Immediate recourse of a specialist requires the presence of at least one of the following symptoms:

· Feeling of anxiety, panic and fear, arising regularly and without reason.

· Sleep disorder.

· Sweaty and cold hands and feet.

· Difficulty breathing, shortness of breath.

· Dry mouth.

· Tingling and numbness in limbs.

· Constant nausea.

· Dizziness.

· Increased muscle tone.

· Increased palpitations and a feeling of pressure in breast.

· Rapid breathing.

· Decreased visual acuity.

· Two-sided headache.

· Diarrhea and bloating.

· Difficult swallowing.

Any manifestation of a mental disorder is invariably accompanied by a sense of anxiety and obsessive negative thoughts that distort the person's acceptance of reality. The structure of anxiety disorder is heterogeneous and is formed by several components, including consciousness, behavior and physiology. The disorder has an effect on behavior, performance, can cause insomnia and stuttering, as well as stereotyped behavior and hyperactivity. As for the physiological symptoms of anxiety disorder, they are perceived as dangerous to human life and health, as patients see life as black and white. They tend to invent non-existent facts, taking the headache for a brain tumor, chest pain for a heart attack, and rapid breathing for a sign of impending death.