Symptoms Of Anxiety

We all get anxious from time to time. Life rarely follows a smooth path, and the bumps we encounter along the road can often lead to anxiety. But where do you draw the boundary between ordinary, healthy apprehension and an anxiety disorder requiring anxiety therapy?

Physical Symptoms of Anxiety

Anxiety responses are a hangover from our caveman days, the fight or flight reaction that helped to keep our ancestors safe from saber-toothed tigers and rival tribes. The heartbeat increases, the muscles tense and we start to sweat. Of course, in our modern, post-industrial society, the threat is more likely to come from our supervisor asking us to explain the drop in last month's sales figures, so the response is inappropriate, since we are unable to either run away or to pick up a big rock and brain our supervisor with it, much as we might like to. So our heart continues to beat, our palms continue to sweat and our blood pressure continues to rise, leading not to the elimination of the threat, but to the destruction of our kidneys.

Emotional Symptoms of Anxiety

The symptoms of anxiety can be mental as well as physical. They can include obsessively dwelling on the cause of the anxiety, emotional numbness and withdrawal from the world, and sometimes dependence on alcohol, drugs or other addictions. These addictions need not be chemical in nature; they can be anything from video games to loveless sexual encounters. Some people develop rituals and superstitions as a coping strategy.

So, When Does Anxiety Become a Problem?

As a general rule, you should seek treatment when anxiety becomes so severe and persistent that it starts to interfere with daily living on an ongoing basis. Being unable to sleep soundly because you are nervous about a job interview the following day is not an anxiety disorder. Being unable to get out of bed for days on end for reasons that you can't quite identify is.

Several personality tests exist to help doctors identify the nature and severity of the disorder. Once diagnosed, the disorder may be treated with medications, therapy, or a combination of the two. Common medications used are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), beta blockers and antidepressants. Types of therapy used include relaxation therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and psychotherapy.

Your doctor should be able to find the right combination of medications and therapy. Sometimes this might take a while and several different options may need to be tried before the right one is found. This is perfectly normal. It's nothing to be anxious about.